Textiles, silk, embroideries

Spearhead of our collections, the textile collection is made up with 2500 pieces, among which 300 liturgical clothes with their accessories (stole, maniple, purse, veil of chalice) in a perfect state of preservation.

This state is due to the extreme care that the nuns took of those vestments. it is also due to the regular renovations they bring to : cleaning, strengthening or even restoration through transfer of embroideries on a new fabric.

These clothes are made also in court clothes or plainclothes brought as dowry by girls who become nuns.
Others are made in royal fabric as for example the one made in a dress of Queen Marie-Antoinette.

The Visitandines have embroidered floral patterns or figurative scenes on most of the clothes (pluvials, dalmatics, chasubles) with gold, silver or polychrome silk threads. The fineness is such that we call it needle painting.

The Visitandines also used various decoration technics: petit point embroidery, painting, even pyrography.

Add to this rich whole of embroideries with polychrome silk threads or metallic threads, more than 900 pieces of white embroideries and laces permit to appreciate the range of this needlework. Some pieces are made with Bruxelles, Milan or Alençon laces and show the expertise and the skill of the nuns.