8647.
Piece of Silk and Gold Damask; ground, crimson, sprinkled with gold stars; pattern, the Annunciation. Italian, 14th century. 1 foot 1-1/4 inches by 8 inches.
In this admirable specimen of the Florentine loom we have shown
us the B. V. Mary not quite bare-headed, but partly hooded and nimbed,
as queen-like she sits on a throne, with her arms meetly folded on her
breast, the while she listens to the words of the angel who is on his
knees before her, and uplifting his hand in the act of speaking a benediction,
while in his left he holds the lily-branch, correctly—which is not
always so in art works—blooming with three, and only three, full-blown
flowers. Above the archangel the Holy Ghost is coming down from
heaven in shape of a dove, from whose beak dart forth long rays
of light toward the head of St. Mary. The greater part of the subject
is wrought in gold; the faces, the hands, and flowers are white, and a
very small portion of the draperies blue. The drawing of the figures
is quite after the Umbrian school, and, therefore, not merely good,
but beautiful. In his "Geschichte der Liturgischen Gewänder des
Mittelalters," 1 Lieferung, pl. xiii. Dr. Bock has figured it.
8648.
An Embroidered Figure of St. Ursula, within a Gothic niche, which with much of the drapery, was done in gold, on a ground now brown. Rhenish, 14th century. 8-3/4 inches by 3-3/4 inches.
So sadly has the whole of this embroidery suffered, apparently from
damp, that the tints of its silk are gone, and the gold about it all become
black. That this is but one of several figures in an orphrey is very likely;
it gives us the saint with the palm-branch of martyrdom in one hand, a
book in the other, and an arrow slicking in her neck, the instrument
of her death; being of blood royal, she wears a crown; emblem of
heaven and paradise, the ground she treads is all flowery.
