Page:Textile fabrics; a descriptive catalogue of the collection of church-vestments, dresses, silk stuffs, needle-work and tapestries, forming that section of the Museum (IA textilefabricsde00soutrich).pdf/341

 7070.

Silk Damask; ground, purple; pattern, heraldic figures, birds, and oval floriations, in gold thread. Oriental, 14th century. 16 inches by 9 inches.

On an oval, floriated all round, and enclosing two lionesses addorsed rampant regardant, are two wyvern-like eagles with curious feathered tails, regardant; below, are two cockatoos addorsed regardant, all in gold. The oval floriation is outlined with green. When new, this stuff must have had a brave appearance, and shows a Persian tradition about it.

7071.

Linen, embroidered in silk; ground, fine linen; pattern, a zigzag, alternating in light blue and brown. German, 15th century. 14 inches by 3-1/2 inches.

The zigzag may be termed dancette, and all over is parted into lozenges, each lozenge charged with a cross made of mascles, and the spaces between the brown and the blue zigzags, filled in with others of a light brown coloured diapering.

7072.

Silk Damask; ground, violet or deep purple; pattern, angels with thuribles, and emblems of the Passion, in yellow and white. Florentine, late 14th century. 18-1/4 inches by 15-3/4 inches.

This truly artistic and well-executed stuff displays a row of angels in girded albs, all flying one way, as with the left hand they swing thuribles, and another row kneeling, each with a crown of thorns in his hands, alternating, with a second set of angels, in another row, each bearing before him a cross. All the angels are done in yellow, but with face and hands white, and the whole ground is strewed with stars. It is likely that this fine stuff was woven expressly for the purple vestments worn in Passion time, at the end of Lent.