Every so often I will be digging through my archives and come across items that I cannot for the life of me recall the details around, including where I even came across them. The dilemma: do you show them or not? Obviously it would be preferable to be able to present some sort of historical information around them, but at the same time there is often a value simply in showing them for their own sake even in the absence of those details. The two chasubles I am showing you today certainly fall into that category, for me at least, for reason of their particular uniqueness.
The first is a violet chasuble filled with the various symbols related to the Passion, the Lamb of God, and a reference to the rod and snake of Moses. This sort of iconographically rich chasuble is by no means unknown of course, but they certainly are not the norm. They most typically appear in violet and black chasubles, though examples can be found in other liturgical colours, including white.
The second example is a red chasuble which has a "folk art" like quality to it -- I would wonder if this wasn't the product of one of the Spanish or Portuguese mission territories as it has something of that character. Regardless, it appears to centrally show Christ bound. Around this are other symbols, such as a fallen pitcher and while I have not spent a great deal of time looking into this chasuble, it presents any number of curiosities at first look that are worthy of further research. Here's a look.
