1336.
Silk Damask; ground and pattern in rich crimson; design, eight-cusped ovals, each cusp tipped not with a flower, but tendrils; the ovals enclose a conventional artichoke purfled with flowers; and the spaces between the ovals are filled in with small artichokes in bloom. Spanish, 15th century. 20 inches by 14-3/4 inches.
This is a fine specimen both for the richness of its silk and the
warm and mellow tint of its ground, upon which the pattern comes out
in a duller tone. Further on we shall meet with another stuff, No. 1345,
which must have proceeded from the same loom, and shows in its design
many elements of the one in this. Either Granada or Almeria produced
this fine piece, which affords us, in the brilliancy of its colour, an apt
sample of our old poet Chaucer's dress for one of his characters, of
whom he tells us,—
"In sanguin and in perse he clad was alle;"
and helps us to understand Spenser's allusion to the young maiden's blushes:—
"How the red roses flush up in her cheekes
. . . with goodly vermill stayne,
Like crimson dyde in grayne."
1337.
Web for Orphreys; ground, crimson silk; design, in gold thread, a straight branch of a tree bearing pairs of boughs with flowers, alternating with other boughs with sprigs of leaves. German, early 16th century. 14-1/2 inches by 2-1/2 inches.
The warp of this web is thick linen thread, and where the woof of
crimson silk is worn away, this thread, as if part of the design, shows
itself; and, as the gold is poor and sparingly put on, the specimen now
looks shabby. Like many other samples of the kind, woven, probably,
at Cologne, this was intended as the narrow orphrey on liturgical
garments.
