8690.
Piece of Green Velvet, spangled with gold, and embroidered with three armorial shields in gold thread and coloured silks. German, 17th century. 10 inches by 9-3/4 inches.
All the shields are very German, especially in their crests. The
shield on the right hand will attract notice by its anomaly; on a field
azure it gives a rose gules barbed green, or colour upon colour; the
crest, too, is a curiosity, at least in English blazon, displaying an Elector's
cap with very tall bullrushes, five in number, and coloured proper,
issuing from between the ermine and the crimson velvet.
8691.
Linen Napkin, for liturgic use, embroidered, in coloured silks, with conventional flowers. German, end of the 16th century. 2 feet 1/2 inch by 1 foot 11 inches.
This is another of those liturgical rarities—Corpus Christi cloths—of
which we have spoken at No. 8342, under the name of Sindons, or
Pyx-cloths. Such appliances were employed for mantling the pyx or
ciborium when shut up in the tabernacle—that little temple-like erection
on the table, or rather step, on the wall-side of the altar—when the
custom ceased of keeping the pyx hanging up beneath a canopy.
8692.
Hood of a Cope, silk damask, red and yellow, with the subject of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary woven in it. Florentine, late 15th century. 1 foot 5 inches by 1 foot 4-1/2 inches.
Uprising from her grave, and amid rays of glory and an oblong or
elliptic aureole, the Virgin Mary is being wafted to heaven by four
angels, who are not, as of yore, vested in long close albs like deacons, but
in flowing garments so slit up as to show their naked arms, bare legs, and
lower thighs. Upon the empty tomb, from out of which are springing
