With the upright, as with the flat frame, the workman went the same road to his labours; but, in either of these ways, had to grope in the dark a great deal on his path. In both, he was obliged to put in the threads on the back or wrong side of the piece following his sketch as best he could behind the fixings or warp. As the face was downward in the flat frame he had no means of looking at it to correct a fault. In the upright frame he might go in front, and with his own doings in open view on one hand, and the original design full before him on the other, he could mend as he went on, step by step, the smallest mistake, were it but a single thread. Put side by side, when done, the pieces from the upright frame were, in beauty and perfection, far beyond those that had come from the flat one. In what that superiority consisted we do not know with certitude, for not one single flat sample, truly such, is recognizable from evidence within our reach.
To us it seems that the Saracenic work was in texture light and thin, so that it might be, as it often was, employed for making vestments themselves, or sewed instead of needlework embroidered on those liturgical appliances. In the inventory of St. Paul's, London, A.D. 1295, mention is made of it thus: "Duo amicti veteres quorum unus de opere Saraceno."[1] "Stola de opere Saraceno."[2] "Vestimentum de opere Saraceno."[3] "Tunica et Dalmatica de indico sendato afforciato cum bordura operis Saraceni."[4] "Quatuor offertoria de rubeo serico quorum duo habent extremitates de opere Saraceno."[5]
Of the tapestries in this collection, perhaps Nos. 1296, p. 296, and 1465, p. 298, may be of the so-called Saracenic kind, because wrought in the low flat loom, or, "de basse lisse," while all the rest are assuredly of the "dehaute lisse," or done in the upright frame.
When the illuminators of MSS. began—and it was mostly in Flanders—to put in golden shadings all over their painting, their fellow-countrymen, the tapestry-workers, did the same.
Such a manner, in consequence, cannot be relied on as any criterion whereby to judge of the exact place where any specimen of tapestry had been wrought, or to tell its precise age. To work figures on a golden ground, and to shade garments, buildings, and landscapes with gold, are two different things.
Upon several pieces here gold thread has been very plentifully used, but the metal is of so debased a quality that it has become almost black.
For Church decoration and household furniture the use of tapestry, both here and abroad, was—nay, on the Continent still is—very great.
