Tristan Quilt

The Tristan Quilt is one of the earliest surviving quilts in the world. Depicting scenes from the story of Tristan and Isolde, it was made in Sicily during the second half of the 14th century. The quilt is made from two layers of linen, stitched together with wadding in between. Backstitch in cream and brown linen thread defines a series of pictures with captions that have been brought into relief by inserting rolls of cotton stuffing to raise sections of the design, a technique known as trapunto. The imagery on the quilt resembles the narrative of chapters 17–19 of a 14th-century novella, La Tavola Rotonda o L'Istoria di Tristano, which describes the oppression of Cornwall by Languis of Ireland and his champion Amoroldo. The scenes on the V&A quilt are not in their original order, having been re-arranged at some point. Each scene has a caption in the Sicilian language. The foliage on the Quilt includes ivy and grape vines, a reference to the plants that grew and intertwined from the tombs of the doomed Tristan.