brown silk thread. At times, even thus much of embroidery was set aside for the painting brush, and instances are to be found in which the spaces left uncovered by the loom for the heads and extremities of the human figures, are filled in by lines from the brush.
Often, too, the cut-work done in these ways is framed, as it were, with an edging, either in plain or gilt leather, hempen, or silken cord, exactly like the leadings of a stained glass window.
Belonging to ourselves is an old English chasuble, the broad cross, at the back of which is figured with "The Resurrection of the Body." The dead are arising from their graves, and each is wrought in satin, upon which the features on the face, and the lineaments of the rest of the body, are shown by thin lines worked with the needle in dark brown silk; and the edge, where each figure is sewed on the grounding, is covered with a narrow black silk cord, after much the same fashion as the lectern-veil here, No. 7468, p. 141, of silk and gold cut work. Instances there are wherein, instead of needlework, painting was resorted to; No. 8315, p. 189, shows us a fine art-work in its way, upon which we see the folds of the white linen garment worn by our Lord, marked by brown lines put in with the brush, while the head and extremities, and the ground strewed with flowers, are wrought with the needle. No. 8687, p. 258, gives us a figure where the whole of the person, the fleshes and clothing, are done in woven silk cut out, shaded and featured in colours by the brush with some little needle-*work here and there upon the garments. In that old specimen, No. 8713, p. 270, such parts of the design as were meant to be white are left uncovered upon the linen, and the shading is indicated by brown lines.
Perhaps in no collection open anywhere to public view could be found a piece of cut-work so full of teaching about the process, and its easy way of execution, as the one here, No. 1370, p. 76; to it we earnestly recommend the attention of such of our readers as may wish to learn all about this method.
For the invention of cut-work or "di commesso," as Vasari calls it, that writer tells us we are indebted to one of his Florentine countrymen: "It was by Sandro Botticelli that the method of preparing banners and standards in what is called cut-work, was invented; and this he did that the colours might not sink through, showing the tint of the cloth on each side. The baldachino of Orsanmichele is by this master, and is so treated," &c., and this work serves to show how much more effectually that mode of proceeding preserves the cloth than do those mordants, which, corroding the surface, allow but a short life to the
