White embroidery: ‘a hidden work of art’

On the Maltese islands, we are lucky to have a lot of local handmade products and we still have some talented individuals who can keep traditions alive.

Eucharist pall

When it comes to fabric, we pride ourselves of different forms of lace-making and gold embroidery, among others. However, there is a type of embroidery, which is quite unknown (or, in my opinion, hidden) and which is not appreciated as much as it should be: white embroidery on white cloth, which is mostly found in sacristies.

Sr Batistina and Sr Martha, of the Franciscan Order, who, for many years, used to go to St John Co-Cathedral’s museum on a daily basis to repair the tapestries, used to tell me that white embroidery is the most difficult to do.

Few are able to do this work by hand

IHS pall

The thread for white embroidery is obviously white, so the designs are created through different kinds of stitches on white cloth. Once, Sr Battistina told me that to do a pall (the size of a pall is around 20cm x 20cm) she needed approximately 65 hours of work. This kind of embroidery was mostly done for liturgical apparatus but was also common in home furnishings, such as bedspreads and pillow cases.

White embroidery is mostly done in the centre of the cloth while, at the edges, there is what is called aġġorn. The aġġorn is another kind of white embroidery done on the edges of a cloth to avoid fraying.

Sacred Heart of Jesus pall.

Nowadays, only a few people are able to do this work by hand and on a more simplified scale.

White embroidery can also be done on a kind of lace called ‘intalco’. Various stitches are used here. For example, to embroider a leaf, one has to do four to six different stitches.

Creating designs for white embroidery is also a difficult task. Many years ago, Carmelite fathers Fr Franco Falzon and Fr Albert Mercieca, who used to do such designs, had told me that the designs had to be made in full detail, not like the lace designs that sometimes are repeated.

Agnus Dei pall

White embroidery on liturgical vestments can be considered as a kind of prayer. It is made with much love and adoration, thus sending a sacred message to the person for whom it is crea­ted. The most beautiful work I have ever seen is at the back of an amice, which, unfortunately, is not visible when worn as it is covered by the alb.

These days, white embroidery is not displayed in sacristies anymore, not even during feast days. I hope that, one day, this wonderful work of art will be displayed in some museum or in a national exhibition.

Fr Martin D. Schembri, O.Carm, is parish priest of Fleur-de-Lys.

A purificator with Eucharist symbols