Though the work upon this stole is rather coarse, still from its raised style it must have been effective; but its chief value is from having been a liturgic ornament. The diapering at the end figured with the Holy Lamb, done upon a yellow canvas ground, with its thin golden threads worked into three circles, with their radiations not straight but wavy, is remarkable, and may be found upon another work wrought by a German needle in this collection. Not only the Lamb and the Dove, but the floriation, are thrown up into a sort of low relief.
1323.
Embroidered Linen; design, barbed quatrefoils filled in with armorial birds and beasts, and the spaces between wrought with vine-leaves. German, 15th century. 16 inches by 11-3/4 inches.
This is but a piece of a much larger work, the pattern of which, in
its entire form, can only be guessed at from a few remains. One
quatrefoil is occupied by a pair of eagles (as they seem to be) addorsed
regardant; and the two legs of another three-toed creature remaining
near them prove that other things besides the eagles were figured. The
whole is coarsely done in coarse materials, and, in workmanship, far
below very many specimens here. It appears to have served for household
not for church use.
1324.
Embroidered Cushion for the missal at the altar; ground, crimson silk; design, our Infant Lord in the arms of the Blessed Virgin Mary, with St. Joseph and four angels worshipping, on the upper side, in various-coloured silk; on the under side, a reticulation filled in with a pair of birds and a flowering plant alternately. German, late 13th century. 19 inches by 13 inches.
Such cushions, and of so remote a period, are great liturgical
curiosities, and, fortunately, the present one is in very good preservation,
