Our Old English Opus Consutum, or Cut Work,
in French, "appliqué," is a term of rather wide meaning, as it takes in several sorts of decorative accompaniments to needlework.
When anything—flower, fruit, or figure—is wrought by itself upon a separate piece of silk or canvas, and afterwards sewed on to the vestment for church use, or article for domestic purpose, it comes to be known as "cut-work." Though often mixed with embroidery, and oftener still employed by itself upon liturgical garments; oftenest of all, it is to be found in bed-curtains, hangings for rooms and halls, hence called "hallings," and other items in household furniture.
Of cut-work in embroidery, those pieces of splendid Rhenish needle-*work with the blazonment of Cleves, all sewed upon a ground of crimson silk, as we see, Nos. 1194-5, p. 21. The chasuble of crimson double-pile velvet, No. 78, p. 1, affords another good example. The niches in which the saints stand are loom-wrought, but those personages themselves are exquisitely done on separate pieces of fine canvass, and afterwards let into the unwoven spaces left open for them.
A Florentine piece of cut-work, No. 5788, p. 111, is alike remarkable for its great beauty, and the skill shown in bringing together so nicely, weaving and embroidery. Much of the architectural accessories is loom-wrought, while the extremities of the evangelists are all done by the needle; but the head, neck, and long beard are worked by themselves upon very fine linen, and afterwards put together after such a way that the full white beard overlaps the tunic. Another and a larger example, from Florence, of the same sort, is furnished us at No. 78, p. 1. Quite noteworthy too is the old and valuable vestment, No. 673, p. 5, in this regard, for parts of the web in the back orphrey were left open, in the looms for the heads, and extremities of the figures there, to be done afterwards in needlework. Such a method of weaving was practised in parts of Germany, and the web from the looms of Cologne, No. 1329, p. 61, exhibits an example.
Other methods were bade to come and yield a quicker help in this cut-work. To be more expeditious, all the figures were at once shaped out of woven silk, satin, velvet, linen, or woollen cloth as wanted, and sewed upon the grounding of the article. Upon the personages thus fashioned in silk, satin, or linen, the features of the face and the contours of the body were wrought by the needle in very narrow lines done in
