The little hound behind him is somewhat singular. To us it appears curious that such an elaborate and princely design, meant evidently for the hangings of some palace, should have been done in the rather mean materials which we find. Parts seem to have been woven in gold thread; but so thin and debased was the metal that it is now quite black, and the linen warp far outweighs the thin silken woof.
8590.
Piece of Silk Tissue; ground, green; pattern, a so-called pomegranate of elaborate form, amid flowers of white and light purple, now faded, both largely wrought in gold. Spanish, 15th century. 1 foot 11 inches by 1 foot 2 inches.
Not only is the design of the pattern very effective, but the gold, in
which the far larger part of it is done, looks bright and rather rich; yet,
by examining it with a powerful glass, we may discover an ingenious,
not to say trickish, way for imitating gold-covered thread. Skins of
thin vellum were gilt, and not very thickly; these were cut into very
narrow filament-like shreds, and in this form—that is, flat with the
shining side facing the eye—afterwards woven into the pattern as if
they were thread, a trick in trade which the Spaniards learned from
the Moors.
The warp is of a poor kind of silk not unlike jute, and the woof is partly of cotton, partly linen thread, so that with its mock gold filaments we have a showy textile out of cheap materials; a valuable specimen of the same sort of stuff from a Saracenic loom will be found under No. 8639, &c.
8591, 8591A.
Two Pieces of Silk Tissue; ground, a bright green; pattern, not complete, but showing a well-managed ornamentation, consisting of the so-called pomegranate with two giraffes below, the heads of which are in gold, now so
