Needlework As Art Part 20

Among the gifts to Charlemagne (ninth century) from Haroun el Raschid were velvets; and the earliest existing specimen we know of is named by Bock as being in the Pergament Codex at Le Puy, in Vendome, where, amongst other curious interleaved specimens of weaving, is a fine piece of shorn silk velvet.[279]

Marco Polo, in the thirteenth century, frequently speaks of velvet as an Asiatic fabric. It is first known as a European textile in Lucca, about 1295, and we may therefore say that it was imported from the East.[280]

In the next chapter on colour I have noticed the curious fact that the word purple was sometimes used to mean colour, and sometimes to express the texture of velvet, thus confounding the two; but I have also pointed out that it had other meanings, and had become a very comprehensive word for everything that expressed richness and warmth.

While examining and judging embroideries, we must be careful not to be deceived by the different dates often occurring in the grounding and the applied materials. Much embroidery was worked on fabrics that were already old and even worn out; and others have been transferred centuries ago, and perhaps more than once, to fresh grounds.[281]

This sometimes causes a good deal of difficulty in dating specimens.

One should begin by ascertaining whether the needlework was originally intended to be cut out (_opus consutum_), and so laid on a ground of another material, and worked down and finished there.

Of course it is always evident and easily ascertained, whether the work has been transferred at all. If so--and from each succeeding transference--small fragments may be found showing on the cut edges.

You will often see remains of two or more of these layers, reminding you of the three Trojan cities dug up at different depths under each other at Hissarlik.

In judging each specimen the ac.u.men of the expert is needed to obtain a correct opinion, and he should not only be an archaeologist, but a botanist and a herald besides;[282] and, in fact, no kind of knowledge is useless in deciphering the secrets of human art. But even when so armed, he is often checked and puzzled by some accidental caprice of design or mode of weaving, and after wasting trouble and time, has to cast it aside as defying cla.s.sification.

It is, however, as well to note these exceptions, as, when compared, they sometimes explain each other.

What I have said regards, of course, the historical and archaeological side of the study of textiles, and I have treated of them as being either the origin or the imitations of different styles of embroidery, and so inseparably connected with the art which is the subject and motive of this book; and not only in this does the connection between them exist, but in the fact that as embroideries always need a ground, silken and other textiles are an absolute necessity to their existence.

For these reasons alone I have given this chapter on materials, short and imperfect, but suggesting further research into the writings of the authors I have quoted, and, I hope, exciting the interest of the reader.

FOOTNOTES:

[130] Periplus of the Erythrean Sea.

[131] It is described by Yates as having the appearance of a flat ribbon, with the edges thickened like a hem.

[132] This rough bark is probably the reason that it absorbs colour into its substance (perhaps under the scales); and it may also account for its being capable of felting.

[133] It may be laid down as a fundamental rule in technical style, that the product shall preserve the peculiar characteristics of the raw material.

Unfortunately, the artist is often ignorant of the qualities of the fabric for which he is designing, and the workman who has to carry it out is a mechanic, in these days, instead of a craftsman.

[134] Molochinus, or malva silvestris (wild hemp), Yates, pp. 292-317, is sometimes spoken of as a mallow, sometimes as a nettle. In the Vocabulary of Papias (A.D.

1050) it is said that the cloth called molocina is made from thread of mallow, and used for dress in Egypt.

Garments of molochinus were brought from India, according to the Periplus (see Pliny, 146, 166, 170, 171). It was seldom used by the ancients, but both Greeks and Romans made it serve for mats and ropes. The Thracians wove of it garments and sheets. It is not named in the Scriptures.

[135] See Gibbs' "British Honduras."

[136] Spartum was a rush. Pliny says it was used for the rigging of ships.

[137] The bark of trees such as the Hybiscus Tiliaceus, and that of the Birch (see Yates, p. 305-6). Birch bark was embroidered, till latterly, by the Indian women in North America with porcupines' quills. Pigafetta says (writing in the sixteenth century) that in the kingdom of Congo many different kinds of stuff were manufactured from the palm-tree fibre. He instances cloths on which patterns were wrought, and likewise a material resembling "velvet on both sides."

[138] "Camoca" or caman in the Middle Ages is supposed to have been of camels' hair, mixed with silk. Edward the Black Prince left to his confessor his bed of red caman, with his arms embroidered on each corner. Rock (p. xliv) gives us information about the tents and garments of camels' hair found throughout the East, wherever the camel flourishes and has a fine hairy winter coat, which it sheds in the heat. The coa.r.s.er parts are used for common purposes, and the finest serve for beautiful fabrics, especially shawls. Marco Polo tells of beautiful camelots manufactured from the hair of camels; and of the Egyptian coa.r.s.e and very fine fabrics woven of the same materials.

[139] "Le Chevalier a Deux Epees" (quoted by Dr. Rock), and Lady Wilton, "Art of Needlework," p. 128.

[140] See p. 359, _post_, for Boadicea's dress.

[141] See Mr. Villiers Stuart's "Funeral Tent of an Egyptian Queen."

[142] The Moors in Spain excelled in leather-work and embroidery upon it; and Marco Polo describes the beautiful productions of the province of Guzerat, of leather inlaid and embroidered with gold and silver wire. Yule's "Marco Polo," p. 383.

[143] See chapter on St.i.tches.

[144] See Chardin, vol. i. p. 31.

[145] Tin, called "laton," was used to debase the metal threads in the Middle Ages. It is also named as a legitimate material for metal embroideries.

[146] For all information about asbestos, see Yates, pp.

356, 565.

[147] There is one at the Barberini Palace at Rome. A sheet, woven of asbestos, found in a tomb outside the Porta Maggiore, is described by Sir J. E. Smith in his "Tour on the Continent" (vol. ii. p. 201) as being coa.r.s.ely spun, but as soft and pliant as silk. "We set fire to it, and the same part being repeatedly burnt, was not at all injured."

[148] See Yule's "Marco Polo," vol. i. pp. 215, 218, and Yates, p. 361.

[149] There are specimens of bead-work pictures at St.

Stephen's at Coire, in the Marien-Kirche at Dantzic, and elsewhere. See Rock, p. cv. This is, in fact, mosaic in textiles, without cement.

[150] Witness the stone whorls for the spindles in our prehistoric barrows, and the "heaps" of the lake cities.

[151] Yates, "Textrinum Antiquorum," p. 129.

[152] An Egyptian Dynasty called themselves the Shepherd Kings.

[153] Yates gives endless quotations to show how ancient and how honourable an occupation was that of tending sheep.

[154] Semper, i. p. 139. The cover of the bed on which was laid the golden coffin in the tomb of Cyrus was of Babylonian tapestry of wool; the carpet beneath it was woven of the finest wrought purple. Plautus mentions Babylonian hangings and embroidered tapestries. See Birdwood's "Indian Arts," i. p. 286.

[155] Joshua vii.

[156] Ezekiel xxvii. 22.

[157] Semper, "Der Stil," i. p. 138.

[158] Yates, pp. 79, 91, 93, 99, 102, 445. Lanae Albae.

"The first, Apulia's; next is Parma's boast; And the third fleece Altinum has engrossed."

Martial, xiv. Ep. 155.

Martial also speaks of the matchless Tarentine togae, a present from Parthenius:--

"With thee the lily and the privet pale Compared, and Tibur's whitest ivory fail; The Spartan swan, the Paphian doves deplore Their hue, and pearls on the Erythrean sh.o.r.e."

Martial, viii. Ep. 28.

[159] The sheep of Tarentum, from the days of the Greek colonists, were famed, as they are still, for the warm brown tints on their black wool. Pliny says that this is caused by the weed _fumio_, on which they browsed.