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/589



those two tables that stand beside him; and on his right arm lies a long scroll.

The borders all about the piece are made up of wreathed boughs of foliage, from out of which peep forth fruits and flowers. The left-hand strip shows a peacock perched upon the stem of a vine, and little boys are shooting blunt-headed arrows at it: on the strip to the right, other little boys are disporting themselves amid the branches, playing music, one beating a drum, a second blowing the flute, others clambering up amid the roses, fruits and flowers; one little fellow, conspicuous for his dress, is waving a flag in great delight: on the lower border children are at their gambols with equally graceful energy. At every one of the four corners is a large circle, wrought in imitation of bronze, all in gold, but now so faded that the smallest lustre from the metal is lacking. They were figured by the means of outlines done in brown silk, each with a subject drawn from the Book of Tobit. In the circle, at the upper left-hand corner, we observe the young Tobias going out from his father to seek, as he had bidden him, for some trusty guide to Gabael's house; in the lower round of the same side the wished-for companion, Raphael in his angel shape, has been brought in, and is speaking with the blind old man. Looking at the circle on the upper right-hand of the border we see the same Tobit giving comfort to his sorrowing wife Sarah, just as both have been left by their son gone on his journey.

Gold-covered thread has been much employed all about this fine specimen of tapestry; but, like too many other instances of misapplied economy in material, this exhibits nothing but blotches of dirty brownish black in those laces which should have shone with gold.

Tapestry Wall-hanging; ground, rather white; subject, a feast. French, or Gobelin, 18th century. Lent by the Board of Works.

Within a large stone hall, roughly built and festooned, is spread a long well-provided table, at which the guests, male and female, are sitting: in the foreground are the servants, some of whom are shown in very daring but successful foreshortenings, reminding us somewhat, on the whole, of one of Paolo Veronese's banquets, though here we behold a rustic building in a garden, not an architectural hall in a Venetian palace.