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/410

 8316.

Piece of Silk Embroidery on green silk ground. The pattern is in branches decorated with glass beads, and gilt spangles, flowers in white and red silk, and leaves in red and yellow. German, middle of 15th century. 6 inches square.

Remarkable for the freedom of its design and beautiful regularity of its stitches. The thin green sarcenet upon which the embroidery was originally made is nearly all gone, and scarcely anything like a grounding is to be seen beside the thick blue canvass, which is backed by a lining of the same material, but white. Those small opaque white beads, in all likelihood, came from Venice, where Murano, to this day, is the great manufactory for Africa of the same sort of ornament.

8317.

Napkin, or Towel, in White Linen Diaper, with patterns woven in blue and brown. German, beginning of the 15th century. 19-1/2 inches by 9 inches.

Though not conspicuous for the richness of its material, this linen textile is somewhat a curiosity, as such specimens have now become rare; and it shows how, even in towels, the ornamentation of colour, as well as the pattern in warp and weft, were attended to in the mediæval period.

8318.

Piece of Silk Damask, green, with pattern of pomegranates, crowns, and wreaths of flowers. Flemish, middle of 16th century.

The tastefully-arranged design of this silk would seem to have been a favourite, as we shall again meet it in other specimens, especially at No. 8332.