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/441

 8568.

Piece of Gold Tissue, embroidered with the needle; ground, gold; pattern, the Archangel Gabriel, with his head, hands, folds of his dress, and lines in his wings done by needle in different coloured silks. Italian, 14th century. 8-1/2 inches by 5 inches.

This beautiful and rare kind of textile, combined with needlework, merits the particular attention of those occupied with embroidery. The loom has done its part well; not so well, however, he or she who had to fill in the lines, especially the spaces for the hands and head, on which the features of the face are rather poorly marked.

8569.

Two Portions (joined together) of Gold Tissue; ground, gold; pattern, in various-coloured silks, of birds, beasts, monsters, and foliage. English or French, 13th century. 13 inches by 2 inches.

Among the monsters, we have the usual heraldic ones that so often occur upon the textiles of that period; but the recurrence of the unmistakable form of the fleurs-de-lis, though sometimes coloured green, persuades us that this piece, entirely the produce of the loom, came from French, very likely Parisian hands, and was wrought for female use, as a band or fillet to confine the hair about the forehead, just as we see must have been the fashion in England at the time from the marked way in which that attire is shown in the illuminations of MSS. and sepulchral effigies of our Plantagenet epoch. Our countryman, John Garland, tells us, as we noticed in our Introduction, that women-weavers, in their time, wove such golden tissues, not only for ecclesiastical, but secular uses; and these two pieces seem to belong to the latter class.

8570.

Portion of an Orphrey; ground, crimson silk; pattern, foliage with fruit and flowers in gold. German, 14th century. 9-1/2 inches by 3-3/4 inches.