Нарбоннский антепендиум

This long strip of white silk was made around 1375 to hang in front of an altar at Narbonne Cathedral in southern France, and only during Lent. That is why it has no colour at all. It is painted entirely in grisaille, shades of grey, because in the weeks before Easter the medieval church covered its gold and colour and stripped things back for mourning and penance. Across the silk run scenes of Christ's Passion, with the Crucifixion at the centre. Kneeling small on either side are the people who paid for it: King Charles V of France and his queen, Jeanne de Bourbon. Their emblems, a crown and interlaced letters, are worked into the border.