Orphrey

Detail of 17th-century weft-patterned orphrey created in Turkey, once adorning a chasuble created in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, National Museum in Warsaw

An orphrey, also spelt orfrey or orfray, is a form of often highly detailed embroidery, in which typically simple materials are made into complex patterns. In 1182 and 1183 Henry II of England spent lavishly on orphreys.^[1] The word comes from Old French orfreis, from Late Latin auriphrygium, from Latin aurum "gold" and Phrygius "Phrygian".

Orphrey bands are often worn on clerical vestments, a tradition that began in the 12th-century Roman Catholic Church. The finest examples of orphrey can take hundreds of hours of work and sell for thousands of dollars.

References

External links

• Picture of an orphrey (Archived: 17 July 2012)