Vestments Dedicated to the Sacred Heart

With June being the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, it is an apropos time to share some chasuble designs coming out of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that show case some of the Sacred Heart.  

Our first design comes from Croatia and includes a large, full figure embroidered image of the Jesus pointing toward His Sacred Heart, and this has been paired with embroidered vegetal designs in the form of a cross. It can be very difficult to make vestments with figures this large actually 'work' but I would say they've managed to accomplish it in this particular instance. 


Next we have some examples coming from nineteenth and twentieth century France. 


Before we leave France, I'd be remiss to not share the pontifical set from 1920 that was used on the occasion of the canonization of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.  The set shows the influences of the gothic revival movement of that time. 


Next we turn to the Italians.  These designs incorporate the image of the Sacred Heart into a more typical Italianate design motif (and one can see here how the Croatian chasuble we began with could just as easily fall within this same design school). On this point, I'd note that incorporating figurative imagery into a central column orphrey of this sort is no easy task, and in fact, I'd generally recommend it be avoided as it most often comes across as the use of an image for the use of an image's own sake as it doesn't tend to mesh well with the broader design.  Still, if done sensitively, it can be done.  Here are a few of the better attempts.


In this last example, we see another alternative. The symbol of the Sacred Heart of Jesus has been placed where a stemma usually would be -- and there is a wonderful rusticity in how the Sacred Heart is depicted here I think. 
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