Stitches in needlework correspond to the touches of the pencil or brush in drawing or painting, or to the strokes of the chisel in sculpture. The needle is the one implement of the craft by which endless forms of surface-work are executed. With a thread through its one eye, it blindly follows each effort of its pointed foot, urged by the intelligent or mechanical hand grouping the stitches, which, being long or short, single or mixed, slanting, upright, or crossed, are selected as the best fitted for the design and purpose in hand. The word “stitches” does not, however, in this chapter represent merely the plural of one particular process of needle insertion, but the produce and effect of each different kind of stitch by grouping and repetition, according to its most ancient nomenclature. That which is astonishing is the endless variety of surface, of design, of hints and suggestions, of startling effects, and of lovely combinations, resulting from the direction of the needle and manipulation of the materials, and differing from each other according to the power or the caprice of the worker. But the machine is always the same—the threaded needle strikes the same interval, forming the “stitch.”

This venerable implement, the needle, has, through the ages, varied but little in form. The attenuated body, the sharp foot, the rounded head, and the eye to hold the thread, are the same in principle, whether it is found in the cave-man’s grave, formed of a fish’s bone or shaped from that of a larger animal; hammered of the finest bronze, as from Egypt, or of gold, like those found in Scandinavia. A bronze needle was lately discovered in the tomb of a woman of the Vikings in Scotland, and its value is shown by its being placed in a silver case. Steel needles were first made in England in 1545, by a native of India. His successor, Christopher Greening, established a workshop in 1560 at Long Crendon, in Bucks, which existed there as a needle factory till quite lately. The rustic poetic drama, entitled “Gammer Gurton’s Needle,” performed at Ch. Coll., Cambridge, in 1566, was a regular comedy, of which a lost needle was the hero. In those days the village needle was evidently still a rare and precious possession.

Fig. 20.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Bronze needles from Egyptian tombs now in British Museum.
6. Cave-man’s needle from the Pinhole, Churchfield, Ereswell Crag.
7. Bone needle from La Madeleine, Dordogne.

The art of embroidery consists of a design, which includes the pattern, and the handicraft or stitches—the “motive” and the “needlework.”

In painting, as in sculpture, the first idea, as well as the last touch, must come from the same head and hand. But in needlework it is not so. The pattern is the result of tradition. It is almost always simply a variation of old forms, altered and renewed by surrounding circumstances and sudden or gradual periods of change.

However much the design may alter, rising often to the highest point of decorative art, and as often falling back to the lowest and most meaningless repetitions and imitations, the stitches themselves vary but little. The same are to be found in Egyptian and Greek specimens, and the classical names are those used by mediÆval writers, and have come down to us, “floating like bubbles on the waves of time.”

Sir George Birdwood[317] thinks that every kind of stitch is found in traditional Indian work. I confess that I have not been able hitherto to trace any of the “mosaic” stitches to India, nor do we ever see them in Chinese or Japanese embroidery, which shows every other variety. They are, however, occasionally found in Egyptian work.

The following is a list of stitches, under the nomenclature of classical, Roman and mediÆval authors:—

Here are two English lists of stitches; their quaintness must be my excuse for copying them. The first is from Taylor, the water-poet’s “Praise of the Needle” (sixteenth century):—

The second list is from Rees’ “CyclopÆdia” (Stitches), 1819:—

Part 2.

Plain Work and White Work.

We are told that the primal man and woman sewed in Paradise.

To “sew,” in contradistinction to the word to “embroider,” is derived from the Sanskrit su, suchi, and thence imported into Latin, suo.[318] To prove how highly esteemed needlework was among the Romans, I may mention that the equivalent of the phrase “to hit the right nail on the head” was rem acu tangere, “to touch the question with the point of the needle.”

“Plain work” is that which is necessary. As soon as textiles are needed for covering and clothing, the means are invented for drawing the cut edges together, and for preventing the fraying where the material is lacerated by the shaping process. Hence the “seam,” the “hem,” and all the forms of stitches that bind and plait. These necessary stitches constitute plain needlework, and are closely followed by decorative stitches, which in gradation cover the space between plain needlework and embroidery.

Semper has given us his archÆological theories for the origin of needlework and its stitches.

These are his arguments, if not always his words. He says: “The seam is one of the first human successful efforts to conquer difficulties.”[319]

A string, a ribbon, a band, may serve to keep together several loose things; but by means of the seam, small things actually become large ones. For example: a full-grown man can, by its help, cover himself with a garment made of the skins of many small animals. When Eve sewed fig-leaves together, she made of these small pieces a garment of patchwork.

Acting on the principle of making a virtue of necessity, accepting and adorning the severe facts of life, seams came to be an important vehicle of ornament. The Gauls and Britons embroidered the seams of their fur garments. “We may judge of the antiquity of the seam by its universal and mythological meaning. The seam, the tie, the knot, the plait, and the mesh are the earliest symbols of fate uniting events.”[320]

We find but little mention of plain work in mediÆval writings. When linen was worked for some honourable purpose, such as a gift to a friend or a royal personage, it was generally embroidered or stitched in some fancy fashion. Queen Elizabeth presented Edward VI., on his second birthday, with a smock made by herself. Fine linen was about this time constantly edged with bone laces.

Mrs. Floyer has written so well, and given us so much practical information on plain needlework, that I feel it unnecessary to enter at any length into the principles of plain sewing, as my theme is needlework as decorative art.

Mrs. Floyer has, as it were, unpicked and unravelled every stitch in plain work, till she has discovered and laid bare its intention, its construction, and effect. She, has also given us rules made clear to the dullest understanding, instructing us how to teach the young and ignorant. She shows us the quickest and most perfect way of working different materials for different purposes, and tells us how to select them. I will, therefore, refer my readers to her most useful and instructive books,[321] and pass on at once from the craft of plain needlework, to stitches as the art of embroidery.

The link between plain and decorative work deserves attention. This link is “white embroidery.” I imagine it was not a very ancient form of the art, and was practised first in mediÆval days; when we begin to have constant notices of it. The first white laces appear to have followed close upon the first white embroideries.

There is a tomb of the fourteenth century in the Church of the Ara Coeli at Rome, where the effigy of a knight lies on his bed, draped with a sheet and a coverlet, both embroidered. These are evidently of linen worked in white.[322] I give a drawing of them in illustration (pl. 39).

From that date we find continually mention of such work by nuns and ladies.[323] In England it was especially called “nuns’ work” (plate 42). There is a great survival of this stitchery in Italy amongst the peasantry. They have always adorned their smocks and aprons, and their linen head-coverings, and the borders of sheets for great occasions, with patterns in “flat stitches,” “cut stitches,” and “drawn work.” The Greek peasants do the same. In Germany will be found much curious white embroidery, of designs which show their antiquity; and from Spain we get “Spanish work” in black, on white linen, which is nearly allied to the stitches of white work.

Embroidery imitated in marble on the tomb of a knight, in the Church of the Ara Coeli, Rome.

Lord Arundel of Wardour possesses a linen cover for a tabernacle (or else it is a processional cloak) which is of the purest Hispano-Moorish design, and unrivalled in beauty. It is embroidered in Spanish stitches in white thread, on the finest linen, and is intersected with fine lace insertion (pl. 40). It is said to have been found in the time of Elizabeth with some other articles in a dry well; among them a little satin shoe, of which the shape proves its date to be of the end of Henry VIII.’s reign. Russian embroidery, consisting of geometrical patterns in red, blue, and black thread, is of this class.

Processional Cloak, time of Henry VIII., belonging to Lord Arundel of Wardour.

In England alone, the peasantry do no white work for home use, and we must suppose it has never been a domestic occupation. Indeed, the love of the needle is by no means an English national tendency, in the lower classes. Nothing but the plainest work is taught in our schools. Anything approaching to decorative art, with us, has been the accomplishment of educated women, and not the employment of leisure moments in the houses of the poor.

Semper, in “Der Stil,”[324] gives rules for white embroidery, and the reasons from which he deduces them are good. He says, that allowing it as a maxim that each textile has its own uses and its own beauties, we should place nothing on linen which would militate against its inherent qualities and merits; and that, as the great beauty of flax is its smoothness and purity, all projections and roughnesses should be avoided which would catch dust or throw a shadow. Carrying out this idea, it would appear that satin, and not lace stitches are therefore, the most suitable for this kind of decoration. The accepted rule for selecting the stitch for each piece of work is this: on stout grounds the thread should be round and rich, whereas delicate materials carry best the most refined and shining thread work; and in embroidering the smooth surface of linen fabrics, the flattest stitches are the most appropriate.

Part 3.

Opus Phrygium (or gold work).

Gold embroideries were by the Romans attributed to the Phrygians. All gold work was vaguely supposed to be theirs, as all other embroidery was included in the craft of the Plumarii in Rome.

It has been disputed whether needlework in gold preceded the weaving of flat gold or thread into stuffs, or whether it was an after-thought, and an enrichment of such textiles. I imagine that the embroidery was the first, and that the after-thought was the art of weaving gold. Babylonian embroideries appear to be of gold wire, as we see them in the Ninevite marbles.

An instance of the way golden embroideries were displayed among the Greeks is that of the Athenian peplos, which, as I have already said (p. 32), was worked by embroideresses under the superintendence of two ArrhephorÆ of noble birth. It was either scarlet or saffron colour, and blazed with golden representations of the battles of the giants, or local myths and events in the history of Athens.[325]

The art of the Phrygians, who gave their name in Rome to all golden thread-work, has come down to us through the classic “auriphrygium” and the “orphreys” of the Middle Ages. Semper thinks that the flat gold embroidery was the first invented.[326]

The Phrygians had attained to the utmost perfection in tissue ornament when the Romans conquered them, and finding their art congenial to the growing luxury of Rome, they imported and domesticated it; both the people and their work retaining their national designation. Pliny, ignorant of the claims of the Chinese, gave to the Phrygians the credit of being the inventors of all embroidery.[327] The garments they thus decorated were called “phrygionÆ,” and the work itself “opus Phrygium.” The term “auriphrygium,” at first given to work in gold only, was in time applied to all embroidery that admitted gold into its composition; and hence the English mediÆval term, “orphreys.”

All the gold stitches now called “passing” came from Phrygia; Semper attributes all the “mosaic stitches” to the Phrygians, calling them “opus Phrygionium.”[328] Gold stitches are splendidly exemplified in the embroidered mantle of St. Stephen, of the ninth century. The only somewhat earlier piece of mediÆval gold embroidery with which I am acquainted is the dalmatic of Charlemagne in the Vatican, richly embroidered in fine gold thread; and the mantle of the Emperor Henry II. in the Museum at Munich, worked by his Empress Kunigunda, who appears to have been somewhat parsimonious in her use of the precious material.

Almost all ecclesiastical and royal ancient embroideries were illuminated with golden grounds—golden outlines or golden flat embroideries. Later still, raised gold thread work has imitated gilt carvings or goldsmiths’ jewellery; and we feel that it was at once removed from its place as embroidery, and became an elaborate imitation of what should belong to another craft.[329] Such deviations from the proper office and motive of needlework are so dangerously near to bad style and bad taste, that they always and inevitably have fallen into disrepute.

Part 4.

Opus Pulvinarium (or cushion work).

This “opus pulvinarium” is not only to be found in Oriental work, but it has also survived in a very few fragments from Egypt.[330] One of these, in the British Museum, is worked on canvas, in wool and flax; another in a white shining thread, resembling asbestos, on linen or fine canvas. They are regular “canvas” or “cross” stitches, and therefore, under mediÆval nomenclature, would be classed as “opus pulvinarium.” This name must include all stitches in gold, silk, and wool, whether Phrygian, Egyptian, or Babylonian in their origin, excepting the flat and lace stitches (plate 41).

Mosaic Stitches.

1. Italian Pattern, sixteenth century. From Frida Lipperheide’s Musterbuch. 2. Scandinavian. Bock, i. taf. xi. 3. Egyptian. From Auberville’s “Tissus,” p. 1.

Semper’s term, “mosaic” stitches, is a good one, as it covers all that are relegated into patterns in small square spaces, counted by the threads of the textile on which they are laid.[331] He believes that the mosaic patterns and cross stitches in needlework preceded the tesselated pavements, and formed their first motive, though the stitch now refers itself back to the mosaic, at least in name.

It is remarkable that in Chaldea and Assyria there still exist some ruined walls, which are adorned with pilasters, panels, and other architectural forms, covered with some sort of encaustic, imitating textile patterns.[332] The effect is produced by means of a kind of mosaic work of small nails or wedges of baked clay, with china or glazed coloured heads. These are inlaid into the unbaked clay or earth, of which the walls are constructed, and while binding it together, give the effect of the surface being hung with a material which has a pattern worked all over in cross stitch.

The Chinese, the Chaldeans, and the Assyrians long continued to show in their buildings the tradition of this style of decoration. In Egypt there has been found some unfinished mural painting where the plaster has been previously prepared by dividing it into small rectangular spaces, apparently on the principle of the canvas ground for cross stitches.

The name “mosaic” stitch does not interfere with, or militate against the classical appellation of opus pulvinarium, which means “shrine work” or “cushion stitches.” These appear to have been from the first considered as the best suited for adorning cushions, chairs, footstools, and the beds on which men reclined at their feasts, as they are firmly-set stitches which will stand friction. Most of the work now done in Syria, Turkey, Greece, and the Principalities, shows different forms of the mosaic stitches; so also does the national Russian work, which is Byzantine. All these designs are conventional and mostly geometrical.

This work, in the East, is generally the same on both sides. We may infer that the spoil anticipated by Sisera’s mother, “the garments embroidered on both sides, fit for the necks of those who divide the spoil,” was of this kind.

Thus we see that the “opus pulvinarium” has a very respectable ancestry; and though it had somewhat degenerated in the early part of our century, and had languished and almost died out under the name of Berlin wool work, yet it has done good service through the days of mediÆval art down to the present time, both in England and throughout Europe (pl. 42); and it will probably revive and continue to be generally used.

Though the least available for historical or pictorial work, and not by any means the best for flower-pieces (as the squareness of the stitches refuses to lend itself to flowing lines or gradations of colour, unless the stitches are extremely fine, and the work, in consequence, very laborious), yet it finds its especial fitness in all geometrical designs. It is also particularly well suited to heraldic subjects.

A remarkable example of the use of cross stitches exists in the borders of the Syon cope, in which the coats-of-arms are so executed. This is of the thirteenth century; and besides these cushion stitches, it exhibits all those which are grouped in the style called opus Anglicum or Anglicanum.

Italian “Nun’s Work,” from a pyx cloth, sixteenth century.

Many charming designs for this kind of stitch may be found in the old German pattern-books of the Renaissance (Spitzen MusterbÜcher), and also in those Venetian “Corone di Vertuose Donne” lately reprinted by the Venetian publisher Organia. These are worthy of a place in every library of art.

It would seem best to place the chain stitch named “tambour” in this class, as it naturally assimilates with the plaited and cross stitches. It is so called from the drum-shaped frame of the last century in which it was usually worked.

Part 5.

Opus Plumarium (or plumage work).

The “Opus Plumarium” is one of the most ancient groups, and includes all flat stitches, of which the distinguishing mark is, that they pass each other, overlap, and blend together. “Stem,” “twist,” “Japanese stitch,” and “long and short” or “embroidery stitch,” belong to this class, to which I propose to restore its original title of plumage work.

The origin of the name is much disputed, but it is supposed to have pointed to a decoration of plumage work, and we find that feathers have been an element in artistic design from the earliest times. There were patterns in Egyptian painting which certainly had feathers for their motive (fig. 21, p. 208).

Semper, finding that birds’-skins were a recognized article for trade in China, 2205 B.C.,[333] believes that they were used as onlaid application for architectural decoration; and this is possible, for we still obtain from thence specimens of work in different materials partly onlaid in whole feathers, whereas sometimes the longer threads of the feathers are woven by the needle into the ground web. In Her Majesty’s collection there are some specimens from Burmah—creatures resembling sphinxes or deformed cherubim, executed in feathers, applied on silk and outlined in gold. We have likewise from Burmah, in the Indian Museum, two peacocks[334] similarly worked; the legs and beaks are solidly raised in gold thread; and the outlines also are raised in gold, giving the appearance of enamelling. The cloisonnÉ effect of brilliant colours, contrasted and enhanced by the separation of the gold outlines, can be seen to perfection in specimens of the beautiful Pekin jewellers’ work, where the feathers are inlaid in gold ornaments for the head and in the handles of fans. Nothing but gems can be more resplendent.

These survivals help us to understand the casual mention we find in classical authors, of the works of the Plumarii, which appellation was given at last to all embroiderers who were not Phrygians.[335] We have other glimpses of Oriental feather-work in different parts of India.[336]

The use of feathers is common in the islands of the Pacific. It is native to the Sandwich islanders; and M. Jules Remy describes the Hawaiian royal mantle, which was being constructed of yellow birds’ feathers through seven consecutive reigns, and was valued in Hawaii at 5,000,000 francs. A mantle of this description is the property of Lady Brassey.

In Africa, ancient Egyptian art furnishes us with traditional feather patterns and head-dresses; and Pigafetta tells us of costumes of birds’ skins, worn in the kingdom of Congo in the sixteenth century for their warmth; sea-birds’ feathers being highly esteemed.[337]

In America, where birds are most splendid, the art of the feather worker was carried to the greatest perfection. It was found there by the Spaniards, and recorded in all their writings for its beauty of design and execution, and for its great value, equal to that of gold and precious stones.

Though now looked down upon, as being a semi-barbarous style of decoration, because it exists no longer except in semi-barbarous countries, we must consider feather work as a relic of a past higher civilization which has died out, rather than simply as the effort of the savage to deck himself in the brightest colours attainable.

Feather-work is a lost art, but the name of “opus plumarium” remains, and proves that it was still recognized as such in the days of Roman luxury. The name survived when the practice was all but forgotten in Europe,[338] and the art itself disused, probably, because the birds of our continent rarely have any lovely plumage to tempt the eye.

But the glory of feather-work was found again in Mexico and Peru, and the surrounding nations, in the sixteenth century—praised, exalted, demoralized, and crushed out by the cruelties of conquest. The Spaniards at first brought home beautiful garments and hangings, representing gods and heroes, all worked in feathers.[339] Under their rule the natives produced pictures agreeable to the taste of their masters. Pope Sixtus V. accepted a head of St. Francis, which had been executed by one of the ablest of the “amantecas” (the name for an artist in feathers). Sixtus was struck with surprise and admiration at the beauty and artistic cleverness of the work, and, until he had touched and examined it closely, would not believe that plumage was the only material used.

There are beautiful hangings and bed furniture at Moritzburg, near Dresden, said to have belonged to Montezuma. They were given to Augustus the Strong, King of Poland, by a king of Spain.

In the seventeenth century, and later, feather work was still an art in Mexico, the convents continuing to preserve its traditions. Bustamente says that this industry was still in operation in the beginning of our century. The Mexican Museum preserves specimens of the last three hundred years, from the time of the conquest of Mexico.

There is in the Cluny Museum, in Paris, a beautiful triptych, evidently of the sixteenth century. It is worked in feathers, with delicate outlines in fine gold thread. Nothing can exceed the tenderness and harmony of the colouring in shades of blue, and warm and cool brown tints. This is probably a survival of that lost art of Mexico which was carried on in their convents, and may have been a copy of a treasured relic of European art.

Among the few noteworthy specimens that have survived, is the mitre of St. Carlo Borromeo at Milan, described by M. F. Denis as being both artistic and beautiful. He tells us in his Appendix that even now, a tissue of feathers is woven in France, as soft and flexible as a silk damask; and rivalling the Mexican scarlet feather fabric, which the Spaniards admired so greatly. He also speaks of the inlaid feather work, invented by M. Le Normant of Rouen, in the last century, and afterwards continued in Paris by his English pupil, Mr. Levet, who sold two of his works to the then Duke of Leeds, in 1735. The first is a vase of flowers, the second a peacock, designed by M. Oudry (peintre du Roi). Both of these, framed as screens, are now at Hornby Castle.

Unfortunately feathers are, by their nature, most attractive to that greatest destroyer, next to Attila—the moth. Ghirlandajo called mosaic in marble and glass, “painting for eternity;” we may call feather work, “painting for a day.”

From the essays of M. Ferdinand Denis,[340] much may be learned of the arte plumaria of the Mexicans and their neighbours of Brazil, Guatemala, Peru, and Yucatan, and the land of the Zapotecas, &c., where it was also cultivated. He says that their civilization is so mysterious that we have as yet no means of judging whence came their art.

Fergusson suggests the similarity between Central Asian and Central American art, both in architectural forms and plastic and sculptured remains. He thinks that its tradition was transmitted from Asia to America in the third and fourth centuries of our era. If so, it was an unlucky moment for the recipients, as the art of Asia, as well as that of Europe, was then at its lowest and most debased phase; perhaps, however, the more fit for the fertilization of that of a perfectly barbarous people. There is something fascinating in the suggestions on this subject in Mr. Donelly’s “Atlantis;” but when conjecture is only founded on tradition, and without proof, we must not take it into serious consideration.

Having proved the universal use of feathers, it is not difficult to appreciate the causes which suggested everywhere the transfer of this decorative art to another craft, employing less perishable materials. Embroidery probably followed it closely and absorbed it throughout Asia and in Egypt; and the survivals now are only an accidental specimen, a tradition, and a name.[341]

The name “Plumarii,” for the embroideries, is thus fully accounted for, and we need seek no further elucidation. It was commonly used in classical Roman times. “Opus plumarium” seems to have become the legitimate term for all needlework. The Plumarii were the embroiderers, whether their work was in wool, or thread, or in silk (at a later period),[342] with or without admixture of gold or silver (as the Argentarii were the jewellers).

The article on the word “plumarius” in Hoffman’s Lexicon,[343] after describing two kinds of Plumarii, Phrygians and Babylonians, proceeds to say, “These latter, who wove garments and hangings of various colours, were called ‘Plumarii;’ but though this name was at first confined to craftsmen who wove patterns in the shape of feathers, in course of time the name was extended to those artists who, with the needle or by painting, embellished robes.”[344]

The “opus plumarium” included, as I before said, all flat stitches; and I repeat that “feather application” was certainly its first motive; and next came the stitches that conveyed the same desired effect, though a new material was employed, fitted for the needle, which, having served its apprenticeship in “plain work,” now came to the front as a decorative agent.

Painting with the needle began with an attempt to model with it; the lay of stitches being so arranged as to give the whole effect of light and shadow, so as to delineate the forms without changing the shades of the material used. I give on the opposite page some Japanese birds, which will explain what I mean. The stitches are so intelligently placed as absolutely to give the forms of the birds imitated. They represent plumage, and a more artistic representation cannot be imagined. (Pl. 43.)

The same stitch which we find prevailing in China and Japan as plumage work, is employed in embroidering flowers. Here satin, stem, and plumage stitches are blended together, and excellent decorative effects are produced; but the texture of flowers is not to be imitated, as is that of the plumage of birds. “Satin” stitch is a more restricted form of plumage stitch; and “stem” is another variety of these flat stitches, very useful in its place. I therefore have assigned the name of “plumage stitch” to that hitherto called “embroidery” or “long and short” stitches; and I give the term “plumage work” to include all the “flat” stitches.

Practically, it is allowed that these flat stitches, especially the plumage stitch, give most scope for freedom in needlework, as they are laid on at once, and according to the inspiration of the worker, and may cover the outline and efface it. The stitches are not counted, and have more of the nature of touch than any others, as their length, thickness, and closeness may be varied at will. The artist’s design thus admits of interpretation according to the taste and feeling of the needlewoman.

Japanese Opus Plumarium.

Part 6.

Opus Consutum (or cut work).

This is “Patchwork,” or “AppliquÉ” (“inlaid” and “onlaid”). Vasari calls it “Di commesso,” and says that Botticelli invented it for the use of Church banners, as being much more effective than any other style of work, or even than painting, as the outlines remained firm (non si stinguano), and were not affected by the weather (as in painted cloths) and were visible on both sides of the banner. Botticelli drew with his own hand the baldachino of Or San Michele, and the embroideries on a frieze carried in procession by the monks of Santa Maria Novella; he died 1515. Perhaps he may have revived the art of application in his own day.

There are, however, much earlier examples of patchwork, of which the first and most remarkable is the Egyptian funeral tent of Queen Isi-em-Kheb, mother-in-law of Shishak, who besieged and took Jerusalem three or four years after the death of Solomon, B.C. 980. It may be described as a mosaic, or patchwork of prodigious size, made of thousands of pieces of gazelles’ skins, dyed, and neatly sewn together with threads of colour to match, resembling the stitching of a glove, the outer edges bound with a cord of twisted pink leather, sewn on with stout pink thread (pl. 44). The colours are described as being wonderfully preserved, when it is remembered that they are nearly as old as the Trojan War; though perhaps their preservation is less surprising than that the flowers wreathed about several royal mummies of the same period should have shown their colours and forms when the cases were first opened, so as to be recognized as blue larkspur, yellow mimosa, and a red Abyssinian flower, massed closely together on the foundation of a strong leaf cut in zigzags. Among the flowers lay a dead wasp, whose worthless little form and identity were as perfectly preserved as those of the mighty monarch on whose bosom it had completed its short existence. The tent itself consists of a centre or flat top, divided down the middle, and covered over one half with pink and yellow rosettes on a blue ground; on the other half are six large vultures, each surrounded with a hieroglyphic text which is really an epitaph. The side flaps are adorned first with some narrow bands of colour; then with a fringe pattern; then with a row of broad panels, red, green, and yellow, with a device or picture and inscription in the two other colours; on this border there are kneeling gazelles, each with a pink Abyssinian lotus blossom hanging to its collar. The rest of the side flaps and the whole of the front and back flaps are composed of large squares, alternately pink and green. This, for its antiquity, its style, its stitchery, materials, and colours, is a most interesting work of early art, and an example of the perfection to which it had attained. It is remarkable how much variety of effect has been produced with only four colours, by the artistic manner of placing and contrasting them. To our more advanced taste, however, the whole effect of the contrasting colours is inharmonious and gaudy, though certainly striking and typical.[345]

Another piece of Egyptian application, from the Museum at Turin, is a pretty leaf pattern cut out in red stuff, laid on a white ground, and worked down with a darker outline of the same colour.[346]

Fig. 22.
Piece of appliquÉ in red stuff and red outlines from Egypt.

Funeral Tent of Isi-em-Kheb. From Villiers Stuart’s “Funeral Tent of an Egyptian Queen.”

We have an instance of ancient “application” of about 600 years later, Greek in its beauty of design and execution. Alas! we can only ascertain, from tattered fragments taken out of a tomb in the Crimea, that it was parsemÉ with figures on horseback or in chariots. The border is very beautiful. Compare the fragments of which we have obtained a copy with the mantle of Demeter, from a Greek vase, and you will perceive how the styles correspond (Pl. 16, Fig. 23). The ground material is of the finest woven wool, of a deep violet or purple colour, enriched with application of another fine woollen fabric of a most brilliant green, worked down, outlined and embroidered in white, black, and gold-coloured wool, apparently in stem stitches.[347] The accompanying illustration gives the effect and general design of the outer border only, in which the applied leaf is worked down in red, gold, and white.

It is much to be regretted that the centre of the mantle is so tattered and discoloured that it is impossible to do more than ascertain that the design that is embroidered on it consists of figures on horseback or in chariots, in spirited attitudes. The second and broader border is to be found (pl. 17).

Fig. 23.
Narrow border of a Greek mantle.

“Opus consutum” cannot in any sense perhaps be the name of a stitch or stitches. But it applies to a peculiar style of embroidery employing certain stitches. It is the term given to all work cut out of plain or embroidered materials, and applied by “working down” to another material as grounding. It includes all raised and stuffed application in silk, woollen, and metal thread work. It has been given to all work in which the scissors are active agents, whether in cutting out the outlines or in incising the pattern, as in much of the linen and muslin embroideries of our day, now called “Madeira work,” of which a great deal was made in the first part of the century by English ladies who designed and collected patterns from each other, and gave the produce of their industry as gifts to their friends for collars, cuffs, and trimmings.[348]

“Cut work” is named by Chaucer, and is constantly to be found in inventories from his time to the beginning of the last century. At Coire, in the Grisons, is a very beautiful chasuble, of which the orphrey is of the school of the elder Holbein or Lucas Cranach, applied and raised so as to form a high relief. The figures are covered with satin and embroidered. The chasuble itself is of fine Saracenic silk, woven with golden inscriptions in broad stripes. The colours are brown, crimson, and gold.

Wall Pilasters
AppliquÉ Cut-work, Italian XVI. Cent^ry
Property of Countess Somers

In the later Middle Ages, a good deal of this work was executed in Germany for wall hangings; figures were cut out in different materials, and embroidered down and finished by putting in the details in various stitches. As art they are generally a failure, being more gaudy than beautiful. This, however, is not necessarily the case, for there is at the Hotel Cluny a complete suite of hangings of the time of Francis the First, partly applied and partly embroidered, which are beautiful in design and colouring, especially the fruit and trophies in the borders.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries cut work was much employed in Italy for large flowered arabesque designs, commonly in velvet or silk, making columnar wall hangings, which are often very effective; giving the rooms an architectural decoration, without interfering with the arrangement of works of art, pictures, statues and cabinets, placed in front of them. Besides, it was supposed that the utmost effect of richness was thus accomplished with the least labour, and very large spaces and very high walls covered, without losing anything of beauty by distance, as must be the case when the work’s highest merit is in the delicacy of the stitches and the details of form. (Pl. 45.)

The Earl of Beauchamp has inherited a most beautiful suite of hangings of “appliquÉ work;” silks of many kinds are laid on a white brocade ground with every possible variety of stitch, forming richly and gracefully designed patterns; and showing to what cut work can aspire.

A great deal of “opus consutum” has been done in the School of Art Needlework, in the way of restoration of old embroideries. Here may be seen copies of different models of many periods; amongst other British specimens, part of a bed at Drumlanrig, in which James I. slept. In this work the application is cut out, raised and stuffed, and “couched” with cords, and the whole thing is as stiff, strong, conventional, and enduring as if it were a piece of upholstery that was carpentered yesterday, instead of being needlework of at least 250 years ago.

One of the most remarkable large works of this style that exists was shown in 1881, at the South Kensington Museum, during the Spanish Exhibition.[349] It was of the kind called “on the stamp.” This was a landscape seen between columns wreathed with flowers and creepers. In the foreground couched a stag, the size of life—a wonderful reproduction of the hide of the creature in stitches. The relief is so high that the columns appear to be circular by the shadows they throw; and the stag is stuffed so as to be raised about six inches. The work is superb, and causes pleasure as well as wonder; and yet, in spite of the beauty of the design, and the richness of the materials—gold, silver, silk, and wool profusely used—it is a divergence from the legitimate art of embroidery, and is simply the attempt of the needlewoman to combine again the arts of sculpture and painting with the help of so inadequate an implement as the needle. Therefore, except as being a marvellous and beautiful curiosity, it is a failure; it is not art.[350]

Practically, cut work is the best mode of arriving at splendid effects by uniting rich and varied tissues.[351] The Italian curiosity vendors know this well, and often cut up the remnants and rags of rich stuffs, old faded silks, and scraps of gold and silver tissues, and with them copy fine old designs, and sell them as authentic specimens of such and such a date.

I was once requested to give an opinion as to the date of a curtain border bought in Italy, and on consideration I gave the following verdict: “The design is of the sixteenth century; the applied velvet and gold cord, of the seventeenth century; the brocaded silk ground, eighteenth century; the thread with which the whole was worked—machine-made silk thread (English)—middle of nineteenth century.” The whole effect was excellent, and very antique.

This art of “application” is the distinctive part of the “opus consutum,” and it is the best and most economical method for restoration of old embroideries, of which the grounding material is generally worn out long before the stitches laid upon it. Much beautiful work has thus been rescued from annihilation, and restored to use from its long imprisonment in the boxes and drawers of the garret and store-room. But it is cruel to transfer historical or typical works, and so puzzle the artist and the historian.

It is so troublesome to embroider on velvet or plush, or gold tissues, that application is the easiest and most effective mode of dealing with these fabrics.[352] The outlines laid down in cord have the best effect, while binding the edges and securing them from fraying, and it is almost certain that the eye receives most pleasure, in flat art, from a defined outline, which satisfies it; where there are no cast shadows, it lifts the work from the background, and separating the colours, it enhances their beauty. It would appear, however, as a rule, that either black or gold metal should invariably be employed, because they do not interfere with any colour they approach. White is distracting and aggressive. The Greeks sometimes used gold colour instead of gold, as we see in the mantle from the Crimea already referred to; but this is not nearly so agreeable to the eye as pure gold. A great deal of modern “opus consutum,” or application cut work, has been done in Constantinople of late years. The designs in general, are not artistic; nor are the colouring and materials very commendable. The onlaid material is, in general, sewn down with chain stitches, and cut out afterwards.

Part 7.

Lace.—Opus Filatorium or Araneum.

Mrs. Palliser says that from the earliest times the art of lace-making has been so mixed up with that of needlework, that it is impossible to enter upon the one without naming the other. This is, in fact, what she has done, showing the intimate connection between the two in her charming work on lace, where much information about embroideries in general, may be found in the introduction.[353]

M. Blanc also considers that there is but a slight transition between embroidery and guipure, which he says was the first lace.[354] As all the earliest specimens and designs for guipure were Venetian, the art was, therefore, probably an Italian invention, though an Oriental origin has sometimes been attributed to it. The objection to this last theory is that we find no ancient specimens, and no modern continuation of such work in the East.

The word “guipure” is a stumbling-block. It has been applied to many forms in the varying art of lace-making; which same variableness has caused its nomenclature to assume the terms belonging to other textile arts where they approach or touch each other, (as in netting, fringes, or embroideries). The nearest approach to laces before the thirteenth century was more in the nature of what we now call guimp.[355]

Embroidery differs from lace, in that it is worked on already woven tissues; whereas lace is manufactured at once, both ground and design.[356] But the link between the two is not missing.

In the twelfth century they worked “opus filatorium,” which consisted of embroidery with the needle on linen, of which half the threads had been drawn out, and the remainder were worked into a net by knotting them into groups, then dividing, and knotting them again. [357] There is a piece of work described in an old catalogue quoted by Rock. “St. Paul’s, London, had a cushion covered with knotted thread: Pulvinar copertum de albo filo nodato.” Here lace and embroidery touch each other.[358] Sir Gardiner Wilkinson notices some early Egyptian work in the Louvre as “a piece of white network pattern, each mesh containing an irregular cubic figure.” This sounds much like lace-work.

It may be fairly asserted that the term “embroidery” embraces the craft of lace-making, as almost all ancient and much modern lace is simple embroidery, and formed entirely by the needle.

Some kinds of lace, however, are made by plaiting and twisting the threads attached to bobbins round pins which are previously arranged in the holes of a pattern, pricked on parchment or glazed paper.[359] The original motive and idea of lace is a net. The patterns called by the ancients “de fundata,” are netted designs meshed. You will see them constantly in Egyptian and Greek art, both in wall painting and textile decoration. Homer speaks of golden cauls, and so does Isaiah,[360] as adorning women’s heads. They also mention nets of flax.

The capitals of the brazen columns adorned with “nets of chequer work” in Solomon’s Temple are very curious.[361] And the author of “Letters from Italy, 1776,” tells of the garment of a statue at Portici, edged with a border resembling fine netting. Egyptian robes of state appear to have been sometimes trimmed with an edging of a texture between lace and fringe.[362]

Lace has been made of many materials in many ways. We may instance “passementerie,” made with bobbins (bone lace), with or without pins, or with the needle only, by hand. The materials have been gold, silver, silk, thread (these two last white or coloured), the fibres of plants, and human hair.[363] A lace called “yak” is made of wool or hair.

Bone laces in gold and silver, or the two mixed and interchanged, are continually mentioned in the inventories of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. Bed hangings, chair and cushion covers, and table cloths were constantly trimmed with gold and silver bone lace, and fringes of the same.[364] Laces in coloured silks were made in Spain and the Balearic Isles late in the last century.[365]

In 1542, a sumptuary law was passed in Venice, forbidding the metal laces embroidered in silk to be wider than “due dita,” i.e. about two inches. This paternal interference in the details of life is truly Venetian. It was intended to “protect the nobles and citizens from injuring themselves and setting a bad example.”

Perhaps this strict rule was relaxed in favour of crowned heads and royal personages; for there is at Ashridge, among the relics of Queen Elizabeth’s enforced visit, a toilet-cover of red and gold striped silk, with a trimming of lace, four inches broad, of Venice gold and silver lace embroidered in coloured silk. Specimens of these laces are rare, owing to the intrinsic value of the metal. We must suppose the origin of these golden trimmings to belong to a very early period. A piece of gold wire lace guimp was lately found in a tomb near Wareham, and is supposed, with reason, to be Scandinavian.[366]

M. Blanc describes lace as a “treillage” or network, and says it is made in three ways. You may complete the ground first, and then work the pattern with the needle. This he calls lace “pure et simple;” and he considers that it differs from guipure in that the latter consists of flowers and arabesques worked separately, and then connected with bars, lines, or meshes. This guipure is the second mode of lace-making.[367] The third is by machinery; but this has the inherent defect of all machine-made fabrics, to a practised eye; i.e. a certain rigidity and coldness in the exactly repeated forms, in which the human touch is wanting. It is curious how in art, even a “pentimento” is valuable, recalling the hand that erred as well as created; the attention that strayed, or reconsidered the design.[368]

M. Blanc, speaking of the beauty of point d’AlenÇon, praises it especially as being entirely needlework. He names the different modes of lace-making, and judges their merits. Of needle-made lace he says: “And the value of this lace not only arises from its representing a considerable amount of labour, but also because nothing can replace in human estimation the fabrics produced by a man’s, and still less by a woman’s handicraft. However the hand may have been restrained by the necessity of faithfully following, on green parchment, the designs imagined and traced by another person, there is always, even in copying an outline, an individuality, an imperceptible deviation to the right or to the left, above or below the tracing, which impresses on the design the accent of strength or weakness, of indecision or determination.”[369] I would add, of intelligence or stupidity; of knowledge or ignorance.

This is not the first time, and will certainly not be the last, that I shall have sought to impress on the needlewoman the fact that her individuality cannot fail to be strongly marked in her work; and I would urge her to carry out the suggestions that her experience and her taste afford her, while seeking to render faithfully the original motive of the designer. In lace-making, as in all art, the interest and the life, as it were, is imparted to each specimen by the attention and thought bestowed upon it.

Mrs. Palliser shows us, by her beautiful illustrations, how much variety may be given to designs for lace-making, which have changed with each period of contemporary art, and are markedly distinctive of their nationalities.

Mr. A. Cole’s lectures on lace, his volume of photographs, and M. Seguin’s valuable work, are full of information.

M. Urbani de Gheltof’s “Technical History of Venetian Laces,” translated into English by Lady Layard, is a beautiful little book and a worthy imitation of the ancient lace-books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.[370]

The subject has been so thoroughly discussed by adepts in connection with its revival as a local industry in its original cradle, that I will confine myself to a few observations on its history and its place in decorative art.

Fringes, Knotting, Netting, Knitting, Crochet, Tatting, and Lace-making, are all parts of the same branch of ornamental needlework. They are all “trimmings,” in the sense of being decorative edges to more solid materials. They are not available as coverings for warmth or decency; but they serve to give the grace of mystery to the object they drape or veil. They soften the outlines and the colours beneath them, while they permit them to peep through their meshes. They are hardly to be included in what is called high art, having more affinity with grace, refinement and coquetry, than with Æsthetic culture or noble thought. This tendency in lace work may be the reason that the masculine mind does not, in general, appreciate these lovely textures, but rather despises them (even when the designs are beautiful and ingenious), as being flimsy and deficient in honest intention; whereas women have always greatly prized them for their delicacy and refinement, and their great value, on account of the time, trouble, and eyesight expended upon them. Their knowledge of stitches also enables them to appreciate their variety, and the taste shown in their selection and arrangement for carrying out each design.

Lace stitches are almost innumerable.[371] Upwards of a hundred are named, and their variations are endless. But a volume would not suffice us for entering into the details of the craft; many of its stitches have been imported into embroideries in gold, silk, and crewels; and such adaptations are always allowable, provided the effect is good.

We have every reason to believe that the claims of Venice as the first and original school of lace-making have been satisfactorily proved.[372] Genoa, Florence, Milan, especially the last,[373] followed suit. Germany, France,[374] and Spain soon started their schools; but Lady Layard believes that Spain received all her inspiration and the greater part of her laces from Venice, which likewise sent teachers to France and to Brussels—or rather, we may say, had many first-class workwomen decoyed from her manufactories to assist in starting rival industries in other countries.[375]

The first pattern-books were printed in Venice in the sixteenth century; and these “Corone di belle e virtuose donne,” as they are sometimes entitled,[376] were imitated in France and Germany.

Venice was proud of her industry, and of the noble ladies who fostered it. It is recorded in the “VirtÙ in Giocco of Giovanna Palazzi” that Giovanna Dandolo, or “la Dandola,” (wife of the Doge Malapiero,) was the first patroness of Venice laces. She also fostered the art of printing in Venice, and is spoken of as a “principessa di gran’ spirito, ne di private fortune,” and her memory is cherished in connection with these proofs of her patriotism. We hear also that Morosin or Marosin, wife of the Doge Marin Grimani, patronized Venetian lace-making. Her forewoman, or maestra, was a certain Cattina Gardin, and through her the art was settled at Burano, where it has been so lately revived.

At the Cathedral of Burano, is kept in the sacristy, perhaps the finest existing piece of artistic lace of the sixteenth century. It contains many groups of figures from the history of our Lord, beautiful both in design and execution, worked in “Punti Fogliami,” and filled in with exquisite tracery. This was the border of an antipendium.

Mrs. Palliser laments the extinction of the art in Venice, and says that but one woman of the old craft had survived; but her elegy was premature, as that old woman, by name Cencia Scarpariola, has lived to see hundreds of girls at Burano reviving all the old traditions, having learnt from her the secrets of the “mestiere,” or “mystery.” Under the patronage of the Princess Margherita, now Queen of Italy, and with the active help and superintendence of Countess Adriana Marcello and Princess Giovanelli, most beautiful laces are now made in every old point, French and Flemish, as well as Venetian. Pezzi, merli, and merletti are executed in the different styles which include all lace-making, and of which we here give a list from M. de Gheltof’s book:—

The price of these laces is very high, but not beyond their value when we consider the vast amount of skilled labour bestowed on them. We are often told that old lace is cheaper than new, as an absurd fact, because the antiquity of lace is supposed to add to its value. Yes, but principally as an object of archÆological interest; whereas that which is being made now is supporting by its daily wage the needlewoman and her family, and perhaps providing for her old age; and as the strain on the eye is very heavy, many lace-workers early in life lose their sight, at least for all the purposes of their craft.[379] For these reasons we cannot say that the prices required for such luxurious trimmings are unreasonable. Zanon da Udine gives us an idea of how costly they were in old times. He says that Giuseppe Berardi, a lace merchant in Venice, made a profit of 75,000 francs on a commission for a set of lace bed-hangings for the wedding of Joseph II., Emperor of Germany, which proves the high prices paid for the new laces of their day.

Blond laces, which take their turn occasionally as fashionable trimmings, veils, and Spanish mantillas, are so called from their original Venetian name, “merletti biondi,” pale laces. De Gheltof derives this appellation from the celebrated collar of Louis Quatorze, and fancies it was made of the fair hair of the workers; but this is only vague conjecture. The term was applied in the seventeenth century to laces in silk, gold, and silver—never to thread laces. I confess I do not find the reason for the name, but accept De Gheltof’s information that it was given by the authority of the magistrates of Mercanzia in 1759.

This is but a very slight sketch of the history of lace. Venice being its birthplace, and likewise the busy scene of its rehabilitation, I have lingered over its school, and left but little space for the discussion of those of Spain, Flanders, Belgium, and France. But these have been thoroughly investigated, and their individual merits are well appreciated, both as antique and modern dress decoration.

I have already said that the lace schools in France were instituted by Colbert, who placed one at Auxerre, under the especial care of his brother, the bishop of that city. Louis Quatorze made it one of his splendid caprices, and not only set the example, but forced the fashion into this luxurious and extravagant channel.

In Spain, lace was made to look its best by being worn stretched over the great hoops of the “Guard-Infante;” and the fashion spread all over Europe. The white laces, resembling carved ivory or those in gold and silver, which remind one of solid jewellers’ work, when spread over the surface of these fortified outworks, guarding from all approach the persons of the Infantas of Spain, assume in the portraits by Velasquez, a dignity which is in keeping with their value. The splendid designs show brilliantly on a background of scarlet, rose colour, or black silk; and that which, hanging loosely, looks only tawdry and ragged, had a magnificent effect when thus displayed.

For ecclesiastical purposes, these grand solid laces seem most appropriate, being effective in large spaces, and easily seen at a distance, hanging over the edge of the altar, as a border to the linen cloths, or finishing the white alb of the officiating priest.

One cannot but agree with M. Blanc, who points out that each piece of lace had its intention, and that a fashionable ball-dress trimmed with the edging of an antique altar-cloth in loops, is in false taste, to say no worse of the misappropriation. Though we have had no schools of lace in England (unless we can call our imitative industries schools), we have samplers of the time of Queen Elizabeth, and down to the middle of the last century, showing that drawn lace and cut lace were regularly taught, probably as an accomplishment, by Italians. The laces of Devonshire and the Isle of Wight (called Honiton) form a group totally distinct from those of Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, and Oxfordshire, which last are very simple cushion bobbin-laces.

From the sixteenth century English ladies have, for their amusement, made cut laces. Still, we must confess we have no national style of lace, and the only enduring ones have been those of France and Belgium, which have always kept the lead since their establishment, though fluctuating in design with the varying fashions of each epoch. Perhaps the reason of their longevity is that they have followed always the taste of their day. That of our time being decidedly archÆological, ancient patterns are now the most successful.

There is a kind of embroidery darned-work, called “Limerick lace,” which is said to be only made in Ireland, and being partly machine-made, is not pure lace, and therefore little esteemed. Very fine thread laces have been produced at Irish work schools; but no commercial result has followed. Clever imitations of Venice point have come from Ireland lately, called “raised crochet.” This is a novelty, and it is extremely fine and beautiful work.

Egyptian “Gobelins,” Woven and Embroidered.

The Exhibition of Irish Lace in London (June, 1883), shows how widespread have been the efforts of Irish ladies to employ the peculiar genius of the sister island for delicate work with the needle, which has always been shown in their beautiful embroideries on muslin and cambric. It appears that every kind of lace, except, perhaps, Brussels point, has been made in Ireland within the last 180 years; but as in each case the effort was always that of one individual woman, the school fell away when she died.

The names of these ladies are now worthily recorded in the official catalogue of the exhibition, with photographs of the specimens produced under their superintendence and care. Perhaps a permanent industry may crown, however late, their exertions to help the women of Ireland.

Part 8.

Tapestry—Opus Pectineum.

It is necessary to define precisely what is meant by the word “tapestry.”[380] The term has been applied to all hangings, and so caused confusion between those that are embroidered with a design, on a plain or brocaded woven material, and those which are inwoven with the design from the first.[381] This latter was called in classical language, “opus pectineum,” because it was woven with the help of a comb (the “slay”),[382] to push the threads tight between each row of stitches; and the individual stitches were put in with a sort of a needle, or by the fingers only, and laid on the warp. It was thus practised by the Egyptians, by the Persians, Indians, and Peruvians; and in Egypt was often finished by embroidery. (Pl. 46.) In Egyptian tombs we have evidence of their tapestry, from the mural paintings representing men and women weaving pictures in upright looms. The comb which served to push the threads together after the stitches were laid in is sometimes found in the weaver’s tomb.

We have, in the British Museum, pieces of “opus pectineum” from Saccarah, in Egypt; and also fragments from a Peruvian tomb, of barbarous design, but the weaving is equal to the Egyptian; and both resemble the Gobelins weaving of to-day. Whence came the craft of the Peruvians?

Tapestry is woven in two ways, by a high or by a low-warp loom (haute-lisse or basse-lisse), vertical or horizontal. The “slay” is the implement which is peculiar to the craft. I shall not enter into any description of the mode of working the looms, as this has been thoroughly well done by masters of the art.[383] But I would call attention to the Frontispiece, copied from a Greek vase, where Penelope is portrayed sitting by her haute-lisse frame. I also refer the reader to the illustration from the Rheims tapestries, in which a mediÆval artist shows the Blessed Virgin weaving at one that is horizontal or “basse-lisse.” (Pl. 47.)

Portion of a Tapestry Hanging. Cathedral. Rheims. The Virgin weaves and embroiders at a basse-lisse frame.

For the best information I have been able to obtain regarding tapestry weaving, I must acknowledge my indebtedness to M. Albert Castel’s “BibliothÈque des Merveilles.”[384] He has given great care to the consideration of this subject, and has collected good evidences to prove his conclusions, which I willingly accept en bloc. Of course he has chiefly dealt with the French branch of the art, and with the Flemish, from which it immediately descends. He begins, however, by quoting Pliny, to prove the antiquity of weaving, and gives a verse of Martial’s to this effect: “Thou owest this work to the land of Memphis, where the slay of the Nile has vanquished the needle of Babylon.”[385]

Homer makes Helen weave the story of the siege of Troy; this may have been partly embroidered; and there are some pieces of woven tapestry introduced most ingeniously into the web of a linen shirt or garment, of which the sleeve is in the Egyptian department of the British Museum, proving that figures were pictured by weaving quite as early as the date of Troy, and unmistakably finished with the needle (Plate 18); at any rate, as early as the days of Homer. Arachne’s web was interwoven with figures. She and Minerva rivalled each other in ingenious design and perfect execution. The description of the beautiful hangings they wove, the glorious colours with their tenderly graduated tints, and the graceful borders, appear to be almost prophetic of the highest efforts of the looms of the Gobelins.[386][387] Arachne’s name is derived from the Hebrew word for weaving, “Arag.”

It appears that the town now called Arras, but anciently Nomenticum, was always a centre of the trade of the weavers;[388] for Flavius Vopiscus, writing in A.D. 282, says that thence came the Byrri—woven cloaks with hoods, which were much in vogue amongst all classes in the later Roman Empire. The craft of weaving, which flourished in the Flemish and other adjacent countries, seems to have become native to that soil, and to have clung to it, surviving many historical cataclysms.[389]

Though in the fifth century the inhabitants of that country were transported wholesale to Germany by the Vandals, and among them those of the town of Arras, yet, thanks to the monasteries, there was a survival and a revival; the craftsmen grouping themselves round the religious houses. Specimens as models were brought from the East. Aster, Bishop of Amasis (a town in Asiatic Turkey), describes these Oriental hangings in one of his homilies. He says that animals and scenes from the Bible were woven on white grounds.[390]

Sidonius Apollinaris, Bishop of Clermont Ferrand,[391] says that some foreign tapestries are “pictured” with the summits of Ctesiphon and Nephates, “wild beasts running rapidly across void canvas, and also by a miracle of art, the Parthian of wild aspect with his head turned backwards.” This might be a description of a Chinese composition, and probably it is so.[392]

Woven tapestry is also called “Arras,”[393] because that town in the Netherlands was the home and school of the art of picture weaving in the Middle Ages. It has been hitherto excluded from the domain of needlework, because of the different use of the needle employed in it. It has always been woven on a loom, and is, in fact, embroidery combined with the weaving; for the shuttle, or slay, or comb completes each row of stitches. It belongs as much to our art as does tambour work, which is done with a hook instead of a needle. Tapestry weaving is the intelligent craft of a practised hand guided by artistic skill. The forms of the painted design must be copied by a person who can draw; and the colours require as much care in selection, as in painting with oils or water-colours. Such a thing as a purely mechanical exact copy is impossible in any art; and the difficulties are increased a hundredfold when it is a translation into another material, and another form of art. Besides, in this case, the copies are worked from the back, and the picture is reversed. The question is this: Can it be claimed as belonging to the same craft as embroidery? I answer in the affirmative, and I claim it.

“When the Saracens began to weave tapestry we cannot tell; but the workers in woven pictures were called Sarassins, and their craft, the ‘opus Saracenicum.’”[394] The French and Flemish artisans who continued to weave in the old upright frames (haute-lisse) were, whether Christians or not, called “Sarassins.” Probably they came through Spain, possibly from Sicily to Flanders and to France, or else from Byzantium. Viollet-le-Duc says that the “Saracinois” was a term applied to the makers of velvety carpets (tapis veloutÉs).[395] This is possible.[396] Woven carpets of Oriental type were spreading themselves as articles of luxury through Europe early in the Middle Ages; and the Persian style of design was much the same then, when the first models were brought to Spain, and thence to Arras, as it is now in the carpets we buy just woven in Persia.[397] The oldest specimens known here have been exhibited in the Indian Museum, and may be of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The perishable nature of the material makes us dependent on the sculptured records of all artistic design for our knowledge of carpets and hangings of more than a thousand years ago; and we must confess that we find nothing really resembling a Persian pattern in any classical tomb or sculpture of the Dark Ages.[398] I have allowed myself to touch upon carpet weaving, as it is germane to tapestry; though it is a branch that soon loses itself and leaves artistic work in the distance. Except the first design, it has become purely mechanical.

After what has been quoted from Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” and bearing in mind the pictured webs described by Homer, and likewise the evidence of the frescoes in Egypt, and the woman weaving on the Greek fictile vase found at Chiusi, we may be justified in concluding that, like all other arts, that of tapestry existed in very early days, died out, and had to begin afresh, and gradually return to life, during the Middle Ages.

Bishop Gaudry, about 925, possessing a piece of tapestry with an inscription in Greek letters surrounded by lions “parsemÉ,” was much put about till he obtained something to match it, to hang on the opposite side of his choir at Auxerre.[399] And it is known that the monks of St. Florent, at Saumur, wove tapestries about 985, and continued to do so for two centuries. St. Angelme of Norway,[400] Bishop of Auxerre, who died in 840, caused many tapestries to be executed for his church. At Poitiers this manufactory was so famous in the eleventh century, that foreign kings, princes, and prelates sought to obtain them, “even for Italy.” The rules of their order of the monks of the Abbey of Cluny, dated 1009, were followed by those of St. Wast and of the Abbey of Fleury, and others in France, who all wove wool and silk for tapestries. Le PÈre LabbÉ, from whom much of this information is drawn and acknowledged by M. Charton (my authority), says that in 876, at PonthiÈvre, in presence of the Emperor Charles the Bold, the hall of the council-chamber was hung with pictured tapestries, and the seats were covered with them.[401]

Order of the Golden Fleece. Tapestry at Berne, taken from Charles the Bold at the Battle of Grandson, 1476.

Sufficient has been said to show that during the dark ages hangings were woven in France, Germany, and Belgium,[402] and that England was not behind the rest of the civilized world in this craft. I think, also, that we have indicated its Oriental origin.[403]

Arras continued to lead as the great tapestry factory till the end of the fifteenth century, when the commercial failure of the city began, at the death of Charles le TÉmÉraire, Duke of Burgundy.[404] Plate 48 shows a portion of his tent hangings woven with the order of the golden fleece taken at the battle of Grandson—now in the museum at Berne. Till then Arras had supplied most of the splendid decorations of which we find such marvellous lists. Every possible subject—religious, romantic, historical, and allegorical—was pressed into the service, and pictured hangings were supposed to instruct, amuse, and edify the beholders. The dark ages were illuminated, and their barbarity softened, by these constant appeals to men’s highest instincts, and to the memories of their noblest antecedents and aspirations, which clothed their walls, and so became a part of their daily lives. The great Flemish and French workshops became the illustrators of the history of the world, as it was then read or being enacted. It is a record of faiths, religious and political; and of national and family lives and their changes. The Exhibition at Brussels in 1880 showed, by its “Catalogue RaisonnÉ,” how much could be extracted from its storied tapestries of both archÆological and artistic information.[405]

Though the art continued to be the servant of refined luxury in the fifteenth century, Arras itself had done its work,[406] and was superseded as the greatest weaver of artistic tapestry by a neighbour and rival. Brussels, which had been gradually asserting itself as a weaving community, from that date absorbed most of the trade of Arras, and thence forwards, till Henri IV. established the works of the Savonnerie, Brussels led European taste, and employed the best artists. Brussels employed Leonardo da Vinci and Mantegna, Giovanni da Udine, Raphael, and later, Rubens and the great Dutch painters, to design cartoons for tapestry works. Raphael’s pupil, Michael Coxsius, of Mechlin, superintended the copying of his master’s cartoons. Shortly afterwards, Antwerp, Oudenarde, Lille, Tournai, Valenciennes, Beauvais, Aubusson, and Bruges all had their schools;[407] and the adept can trace their differences and peculiarities, and name their birthplace, without referring to their trade-mark, or to that of the manufacturer, which is usually to be found in the outer border. Poitiers, Troyes, Beauvais, Rheims, and St. Quentin likewise had their schools, and became famous.

Want of space prevents my entering more fully into this subject of the northern tapestries, and I must refer my readers to the authorities I have quoted from so largely.

ITALIAN TAPESTRY.

The word Arrazzi shows us whence the Italians drew their art. Doubtless there were looms in the Italian cities, and especially under ecclesiastical patronage, through the dark ages. Rome was in communication with the Atrebates in the third century, by whom she was supplied with the Byrri, or hooded cloaks then worn; and as it had been a centre for weaving commerce, it is probable that Rome received from Arras the craftsmen as well as the produce of their looms. At the Renaissance we find factories for pictured webs in Florence, Rome, Milan, Mantua, and elsewhere. The best artists of the Italian schools—Mantegna, Leonardo, Raphael and his scholars, &c., &c.—gave their finest designs to be executed in Italy, before they were sold to Arras, Brussels, France, or England, and they are accumulated in the treasure-room of every palace in Italy. But the finest collections are those of the Vatican, and of the Pitti in Florence. A splendid volume might be edited of these grand artistic works; such a record would be invaluable. Vasari[408] and Passevant give us occasional glimpses of local factories for tapestry, but, as we have before said, this subject has still to be investigated.

FRENCH TAPESTRY.

In France, as elsewhere, tapestry was probably woven in private looms and in the religious houses from early days. M. Jubinal believes that it was made at Poitiers, Troyes, Beauvais, Rheims, and St. Quentin as early as 1025.[409] Froissart describes the entry of Isabel of Bavaria as a bride into Paris, when the houses were covered with hangings and tapestries representing historical scenes.[410] The Cluny Museum possesses a most curious mediÆval suite of hangings from the Chateau de Boussac, of the early part of the fifteenth century. They tell the story of the “Dame au Lion,” and are brilliantly coloured and charmingly quaint and gay in design. Hangings designed by Primaticcio were woven at Fontainebleau, where Francis I. started the manufacture in 1539. However, the first national school of tapestry weaving was that at Chaillot, under the experienced teaching of workmen from Arras; afterwards transferred to the town of Gobelins, 1603, by Henri Quatre.[411] Louis Quatorze and his minister Colbert splendidly protected this manufacture by law, privilege, and employment; so did Louis Quinze. Before the Revolution, other considerable tapestry works were flourishing at Aubusson in Auvergne, at Felletin in the upper Marches, and at Beauvais. These two last were especially famed for velvety tapestries (veloutÉs).

As usual, the French have surpassed all other nations in this textile art. The pictorial tapestries of the Gobelins have carried the beauty of wall hangings to the utmost perfection. Nothing can be more festive than a brilliantly lighted hall, glowing with these woven pictures or arabesques, framed in gilded carvings or stuccoes. Still we must acknowledge that, in choice of worthy subjects, the Flemish ideal, which had been left far behind, was the highest. The weavers of the time of Louis Quatorze aspired only to teach the glories of France, not the moralities of society and civilization, in their historical compositions, which were then superseded by classical mythology, or else by scenes from rustic life, of the Watteau School. La Fontaine’s fables gave some of the prettiest and gayest designs, and were generally the centres of splendid arabesques. The drawing and execution were perfect.

It is to be feared that in the future, great works of textile decoration will be few and far between. It is only when the State, or the monarch that represents the dignity of the State, protects and fosters these artistic factories, that they can continue to thrive. Without such powerful encouragement, fashion, commercial depression, or a war will stop for a time the orders without which funds fail, discouragement sets in, and ruin quickly follows; and the best workman when unemployed, or forced for some years to wield the sword, loses his practised skill never to be restored. In France, whatever has been the form of government, the old traditions of protection for the Gobelins have been acted up to and maintained. The consequence is that science and art still contribute their efforts in the machinery, the colouring, and the designing of hangings of which the materials[412] and the execution are unrivalled. Probably there will never again be a Tuileries or a Versailles to adorn, but an HÔtel de Ville, especially if it is occasionally destroyed, may give from time to time opportunity for such decorations.

ENGLISH TAPESTRY.

When we consider the antiquity and the excellence of the art of tapestry on the Continent, we cannot pretend that there can be the same general interest in that of our English looms. But to ourselves it naturally assumes the greatest importance; and I have tried to trace the efforts of our ancestors in this direction, by noting every certain sign of English production, in what must have been an imitation of Flemish or Oriental weaving. The few facts here collected may be of service to the future writer of the history of English tapestries.

Comnenus, Prince of Arras, fled before the Romans from Nomenticum to England; and he and his Atrebates settled themselves between Silchester and Sarum, and the BelgÆ and Parisi did the same. The Romans found them here when they invaded England. Wherever the Belgic tribes spread themselves, the art of weaving was established. Comnenus probably brought over, and left to his descendants, the inheritance of this craft.

Dr. Rock thinks that pictured tapestry was woven at an early period in the Middle Ages by the monks in England. The earliest proof of this that we possess, is the notice by Matthew Paris (thirteenth century) describing the three reredos for St. Alban’s Abbey; the first, a large one, depicting the finding of the body of the Protomartyr; the others, “The Prodigal Son” and “The Man who fell among Thieves.” All these were executed by the orders of Abbot Geoffrey.[413]

While in London in 1316, Simon, Abbot of Ramsay, bought for the use of his monks, looms, shuttles, and a slay. “Pro weblomes emptes xx^d. Et pro staves ad eadem vj^d. Item pro iiij Shittles, pro eadem opere vj^d. Item j sloy pro textoribus viii^d.”[414]

In Edward II.’s time there were hangings woven in England which appear to have been absolutely tapestries. They were much valued abroad, and were called “Salles d’Angleterre.” Charles V. of France (1364) possessed among his articles of costly furniture, “Une salle d’Angleterre vermeille brodÉe d’azur, et est la bordure a vignettes, et le dedans de Lyons, d’Aigles, et de Lyopars.”[415]

Our trade with Arras must have improved our tapestries. We are told of Edward III. selling his wools to that town, and being therefore called by Philip de Valois, his “Marchant de Laine.” Horace Walpole refers to an act, “De Myster Tapiciarorum,” of the time of Edward III., 1327, “regarding certain malpractices of the craft,” which proves its existence in England at that period.[416]

Mr. French, in his catalogue of the Exhibition in London, 1851, quotes the tapestries of St. Mary’s Hall at Coventry, to prove that there was a manufactory in England, temp. Henry VI. There were certainly individual looms, though we doubt whether it had yet become a national industry, as we have so few specimens remaining. The St. Mary’s tapestries contain portraits of Henry VI., Cardinal Beaufort, &c., and are probably contemporary works. The subject is the marriage of Henry VI.

There is also a piece of tapestry at Bude, in Cornwall, the property of Mr. Maskell, which came from a royal sale. Here the marriage of Henry VII. is depicted, and the style resembles that of the Coventry hangings. The costumes are certainly English, and the original pictures must have been English, though they might have been wrought at Arras, reminding one of the groups of figures and the dresses on the Dunstable Pall (see Plate 78).

Dr. Rock also quotes the reredos belonging to the Vintners’ Company, representing St. Martin sharing his cloak with a beggar. He thinks this is executed by the monks of St. Alban’s, and attributes to those of Canterbury the fine tapestries of the legends of the Virgin at Aix, in Provence, of which we have the history. They were originally given to Canterbury Cathedral by Prior Godstone, and were called Arras work. There is no doubt that there were looms and artists in the convents and monasteries before there was any recognized school of such work in England. Probably till the Reformation such hangings were being woven all over Europe, and only then ceased in Germany and England. One cannot but regret that the weight of the evil which preponderated over the good in the Houses of the Church, should have caused so much that was beautiful in art to be crushed by their ruin.

Chaucer speaks of “tapestry of verd.”[417] This green tapestry seems to have been intended to give a bowery effect to the room it hung; and one can imagine that it pleased the taste of the poet of the “Flower and the Leaf.” It seems to have been much the fashion in England and elsewhere about that period, and generally represented landscapes and woody foregrounds only; but sometimes figures and animals were portrayed, and always in the same tints of bluish-green.

Dr. Rock gives us an extract from the wardrobe accounts of Edward II., containing the following items: “To a mercer of London for a green hanging of wool, woven with figures of kings and earls upon it; for the king’s service upon solemn feast days in London;” therefore the “tapestry of verd” was not a novelty even in the time of Chaucer.[418]

Oudenarde was famous for these “hallings” or “salles.” All the specimens mentioned in the catalogue of tapestries exhibited at Brussels in 1880, are said to be from thence. But we see no reason why it should not have been an English style of weaving also. The first establishment of a permanent manufactory in England, did not, however, take place until the latter end of the reign of Henry VIII., when Robert Sheldon “allowed” his manor-house at Barcheston, in Warwickshire, to “one Hicks,” whom he signalizes in his will as “the author and beginner of all tapestry of Arras in England.” This will is dated 1576.[419]

SUMMER
English Tapestry, Temp. Henry VIII. at Hatfield

There are four pieces of tapestry representing the Seasons, removed from an old family house and placed by Lord Salisbury at Hatfield House, where they hang in the great corridor. These were probably woven in Barcheston. (Plate 49.) The style is English Renaissance, and the design full of intention; in fact, they have the seal of the time of Henry VIII. Only one characteristic reminds one of Flemish art, and that is the mode of drawing the plants and flowers, which might have been taken out of an old German herbal. The landscapes and peasantry are unmistakably English. The pictures are worked with strong black outlines which emphasize every detail and give the effect of a highly coloured outlined engraving; reminding one of the children’s books by Marcus Ward or by Walter Crane.[420]

The tapestries called the “Spanish Armada hangings” were probably woven here late in Elizabeth’s reign. In her time we find in catalogues of household goods, descriptions of splendid hangings, furnishings of palaces and private houses. The MS. inventory of the Earl of Leicester’s belongings, in the library at Longleat, astonishes us with the abundance of suites of hangings of tapestry that it enumerates, as well as those embroidered by hand, and others of stamped and painted leather.

It was in the reign of James I. that the manufacture was set up at Mortlake, in Surrey. Aubrey, in his “History of Surrey, i. p. 82,” however, dates the institution in the subsequent reign; but Lloyd[421] is not only positive for the former date, but affirms it was “of the motion of King James himself,” who gave £2000 towards the undertaking; and we have further proofs extant that he spent largely, and encouraged it in every way. He gave to Sir Francis Crane, who erected the house at Mortlake, “the making of three Baronets” towards his project for manufacture of tapestry.[422]

Another curious item which we quote, shows that the funds for the enterprise were not easily forthcoming. It is a warrant “to Sir Francis Crane: £2000 to be employed in buying £1000 per ann. of pensions or other gifts made of the king, and not yet payable, for ease of His Majesty’s charge of £1000 a year towards the maintenance of Sir Francis Crane’s tapestry manufacture.”[423]

Apparently this little arrangement did not succeed, for there is an acknowledgment by Charles I., in the first year of his reign,[424] that he is in debt to Sir F. Crane: “For three suits of gold tapestry we stand indebted to Sir Francis Crane £6000. Also Sir F. Crane is allowed £1000 annually for the better maintenance of said works for ten years to come.” The king also granted the estate of Stoke Bruere, near Stamford, in Northamptonshire, as part payment of £16,400 due to him on the tapestry works at Mortlake.[425] The great value of these tapestries is shown by the prices named in the Domestic Papers of the State Paper Office, and in private inventories; they were woven in silk, wool, and gold, which last item accounts both for their price and for their disappearance.

William, Archbishop of York and Lord Keeper, gave £2500 for four pieces of Arras representing the four Seasons.[426] Their value, however, fell during the civil wars, for the tapestries of the five Senses from the Palace of Oatlands, which were from the Mortlake looms, were sold in 1649 for £270. The beautiful tapestries at Houghton were woven at Mortlake: these are all silk, and contain whole length portraits of James I. and Charles I., and their Queens, with heads of the royal children in the borders. A similar hanging is at Knowle, wrought in silk, containing portraits of Vandyke and Sir Francis Crane.[427]

Francis Cleyne was a decorator and painter employed in the works at Mortlake by Charles I., who, while he was still Prince of Wales, brought him over to England from Rostock, in Mecklenburg (his native place), while the Prince was in Spain wooing the Infanta. Cleyne was great in grotesques, and also undertook in historical designs.[428]

Three of the Raphael cartoons were sent to be copied at Mortlake.[429] The purchase of these cartoons by the king, showed how high was the standard to which he tried to raise the art in England. The “Triumph of CÆsar,” by Mantegna, was obtained for the same purpose in 1653; and certain Dutch prisoners were forwarded to the manufactory to be employed on the work.[430] It was entrusted to the care of Sir Gilbert Pickering, who was either an artist or the superintendent of the works.

After the death of Sir Francis, his brother, Sir Richard Crane, sold the premises to Charles I. During the civil wars, the property was seized upon and confiscated as having belonged to the Crown. It occupied the site of what is now Queen’s Head Court. The old house opposite was built by the king for the residence of Cleyne the artist. Gibson, the dwarf, and portrait painter, who had been page to a lady at Mortlake, was one of his pupils.[431]

The value of the king’s collection of tapestries was well understood during the Protectorate. The tapestry house remained in the occupation of John Holliburie, the “master-workman.” After the Restoration, Charles II. appointed Verrio as designer, intending to revive the manufactory. This was not, however, carried out; but the work still lingered on, and must have been in some repute, for Evelyn names some of these hangings as a fit present among those offered by a gallant to his mistress.[432]

Arras is said to have been woven at Stamford, but we have no data of its establishment or its suppression. Burleigh House contains much of it; and there is a suite of hangings at Belton House, near Grantham, of which there are duplicates at Wroxton House, in Oxfordshire, all having the same traditional origin at Stamford. Possibly Sir Francis and Sir Richard Crane may have received orders at their house at Stoke Bruere, which lay near enough to Stamford to account for the magnates of the town and neighbourhood obtaining furnishings of their tapestries, and, perhaps, vying with each other in decorating their apartments with them.[433]

In Northumberland House there was a fine suite of tapestry, woven in Lambeth, 1758.[434] This is the only sample of that loom of which we ever find any mention. There were also works at Fulham, where furniture tapestry in the style of Beauvais was made. This manufactory was closed in 1755.[435] It may be hoped that the revival of tapestry weaving at Windsor in our own day may be a success, but without the royal and noble encouragement it receives, it would probably very soon fall into disuse.

Unless it is supported by the State, such an exceptionally expensive machinery cannot possibly be kept at work. It requires the superintendence of the best artists, and the weavers themselves must needs have the highest technical education to enable them to copy really fine designs. These artistic requirements, besides the extreme tediousness of the work, make it the most expensive of all luxurious decorations—even more costly than embroideries by the hand, covering the same spaces. However, the two styles of hangings never can enter into competition, except in a financial point of view. Tapestries are the best fitted for wall coverings, and embroideries for curtains of all kinds—for beds, for windows, and for portiÈres.

The old hangings are now again having their day, and we are striving to save and restore all that remain to us. We must continue to guard these treasures from the moths, their worst enemies; and science should be invoked to assist us in the preservation of these precious works of art, of which the value is now again understood and appreciated, and which increases with every decade that is added to their antiquity.

Tapestry, as art, has its own peculiar beauties, and one of them is the softening, yet brilliant effect of the alternate lights and shadows of the ridge-like surface; the separation of each stitch and thread also casting minute shadows in the opposite direction, and giving an iridescent effect. It is a mistake to struggle against this inherent quality, instead of seeking to utilize it. The coarser and simpler tapestries of our ancestors are really more beautiful and effective in large spaces—flat in the arrangement of colours, and sharply outlined—than the imitations of paintings of the last two centuries, in which every detail of form and colour is sought to be expressed.[436]

M. Blanc says that tapestries were intended to cover the bare walls, but not to make us forget their existence. The wall being intended for comfort and defence, the mind is solaced with the idea it conveys. It is a mistake, therefore, to substitute a surface picture, so real that it at once does away with this impression of security, while a certain conventional art should amuse the mind with shadowy representations and suggestions.

It is, perhaps, fortunate that the possibilities of tapestry weaving are restricted, and thus its very imperfections become the sources of its best qualities as decoration and comfort. One element of textile weaving, the use of gold, both in the backgrounds and in the draperies, takes it at once out of the region of naturalism, while giving it light and splendour.

The designer for tapestry need not be a great genius. Harmony, repose, grace, and tender colouring are the qualities most valuable to such an artist. Battle-pieces, and other exciting and awful subjects, are only bearable in apartments that are used for state occasions, or for hanging corridors and anterooms. They are painful to live with.

All tapestries are liable to suffer by the double nature of their materials—their woollen surface and linen threads which are affected by both damp and heat crinkling the forms and puckering the faces, and bringing out unexpected expressions and deformities. For this reason the design should be as flat and as simple in its outline and shading as is consistent with beauty.