and an animal half a fish and half a lion. Italian, 17th century. 6 feet 1/2 inch by 3 feet 1-1/2 inches.
No doubt this embroidery served as domestic decoration. It may
have been employed as the front to a lady's dressing-table.
8975.
Counterpane; ground, thread net, embroidered with foliage and flowers in various silks. Italian, 16th century. 8 feet by 7 feet 10 inches.
The flos-silks used are of a bright colour, and the whole was
worked in narrow slips sewed together in places with yellow silk; in
other parts the joinings were covered by a narrow silk lace of a pleasing
design.
8976.
Frontal to an Altar; ground, crimson; pattern, sacred subjects and saints, some in gold, some in yellow silk. Venetian, early 16th century. 6 feet 6 inches by 2 feet 3-1/2 inches.
This frontal is made out of pieces of woven orphreys, and by the
way in which those pieces are put together we know that they must
have been taken from old vestments, some of which had been much
used. It is composed of nine stripes or pales of broad orphrey-web;
and allowing for the two end pales being brought round the ends of the
altar when hung there, it would then present seven stripes or pales to
the eye. Looking at it thus, we find the first pale of crimson silk,
figured in yellow silk, with the B. V. Mary holding our Lord as an infant
on her lap, with the mund or terraqueous globe surmounted by a cross
in His right hand, amid a strap-like foliation; the next pale of crimson
silk is figured in gold, with a saint-bishop vested in alb, stole crossed
over his breast, and cope, and wearing jewelled gloves, with his pastoral
staff in his right hand. The third pale, in yellow silk upon a crimson
ground, presents us our Lord's tomb, with soldiers watching it, and our
