Raiment for Liturgy: Vestments in the Kent State University Collection

“Raiment for Liturgy: Vestments in the Kent State University Collection” will highlight a variety of religious garments and textiles from the KSU Museum’s permanent collection, many of which are made from lavish materials.

The Roman Catholic Church decreed that vestments be made of silk, the most expensive and precious of all textiles, because bishops and priests celebrating mass should wear only the finest materials. For this reason, many of the vestments in the exhibition are made of luxurious woven silks brocaded in gold and silver or embroidered in polychrome and precious metallic threads.

Shannon Rodgers acquired liturgical vestments as part of the collection that formed the original gift establishing the Kent State University Museum.  Along with these pieces, “Raiment for Liturgy” includes textiles from the Fulton-Lucien Collection, acquired in 1986, and the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, transferred to the KSU Museum in 1995. These pieces were collected primarily as examples of the textile art of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Together these vestments serve as a survey of the extraordinary textile art of the periods of their creation.