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/348

 7094.

Silk Damask; ground, straw-colour; pattern, net-work of lozenges and quatrefoils, filled in each with a cross pommée, amid which are large circles containing a pair of parrots, all in raised satin. Oriental, 13th century. 8-3/4 inches by 7-3/4 inches.

This fine textile was, in all likelihood, woven by Christian hands somewhere upon the Syrian coast, and while a religious character was given it both by the crosses and the emblematic parrots, a Persian influence by the use of the olden traditionary tree between the parrots, or the Persians' sacred "hom," was allowed to remain upon the designer's mind without his own knowledge of its being there, or of its symbolic meaning in reference to Persia's ancient heathen worship.

7095.

Blue Linen, wrought with gilt thin parchment; pattern, an oval, filled in with another oval, surrounded by six-petaled flowers, all in outline; this piece is put upon another of a different design, of which the pattern is an eagle on the wing. Spanish, 14th century. 7-1/2 inches by 4-5/8 inches.

This is another specimen of gilt parchment being used instead of gold thread.

7099.

Foot-cloth; ground, green worsted; pattern, birds and flowers. German, 16th century. 4 feet 7 inches by 2 feet 7 inches.

In all likelihood, this piece of needlework served the purpose of a rug or foot-cloth, or, may be, as the cloth covering for the seat of a carriage. It is worked in thick worsted upon a wide-meshed thread net, and after a somewhat stiff design.