Needlework As Art Part 21

Swinburne says, in his "Travels in the Two Sicilies,"

that there the wool is so tinged by the plant now called _fumolo_, which grows on the coast.

[160] See Blumner's "Technologie," p. 92; also "Comptes Rendus de la Commission Imperiale Archeologique" of St.

Petersburg, 1881; also the Catalogue Raisonnee of Herr Graf'schen's Egyptian Collection of Textiles at Vienna.

[161] See Pliny's "Natural History," viii. 74, -- 191.

Tanaquil is credited with the first invention of the seamless coat or ca.s.sock.

[162] The Gauls in Britain wove plaids or tartans. See Rock, p. xii; Blumner, pp. 152-54; Birdwood, p. 286.

[163] Pliny, "Natural History," book viii., 73, 74.

[164] "Georgics," iv. 334; Yates, p. 35.

[165] "Comptes Rendus de la Commission Imperiale Archeologique," St. Petersburg, 1881. Much of this Gobelin weaving has lately been found in Egypt. See "Katalog der Teodor Graf'schen Funde in aegypten," von Dr. J. Karabacek.

[166] Semper considers that the famous Babylonian and Phrygian stuffs were all woollen, and that gold was woven or embroidered on them. See "Der Stil," i. p. 138.

[167] Worcester cloth was forbidden to the Benedictines by a Chapter of that Order at Westminster Abbey in 1422, as being fine enough for soldiers, and therefore too good for monks. See Rock's Introduction, p. lxxviii.

[168] Both these fabrics are represented in Egyptian and Greek fragments, and are equally well preserved.

[169] Boyd Dawkins, "Early Man in Britain," pp. 268, 275.

[170] See Wilkinson, "Ancient Egyptians," vol. iii. p.

116; Yates, p. 23.

[171] It appears that the art of printing textiles was known in Egypt in the time of Pliny. See Yates, p. 272, quoting Apuleius, Met. l. xi.; also see Wilkinson, "Ancient Egyptians," vol. ii. p. 196, pl. xii.

[172] See Yates, "Textrinum Antiquorum," pp. 268, 335; Herodotus, ii. 86. Herodotus and Strabo speak of Babylonian linen, cited by Yates, p. 281.

[173] "Textrinum Antiquorum," pp. 267-80. A peculiarity of Egyptian linen is that it was often woven with more threads in the warp than in the woof. A specimen in the Indian Museum, South Kensington, shows in its delicate texture 140 threads in the inch to the warp, and 64 to the woof. Another piece of fine linen has 270 to the warp, and 110 to the woof. Generally there are twice or three times as many threads, but sometimes even four times the number. Wilkinson gives a probable reason for this peculiarity. See Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians,"

vol. i. chap. ix. pp. 121-226. See Rock's Introduction, p. xiv.

[174] De Somniis, vol. i. p. 653. Yates, p. 271.

[175] Philo, cited by Yates, p. 271.

[176] Paulinus ad Cytherium, cited by Yates, p. 273.

[177] Herodotus, l. ii. c. 182, l. iii. c. 47.

Rawlinson's Trans.

[178] Proverbs vii. 16.

[179] Yates, p. 291. Denon describes a tunic found in a sarcophagus, which he examined, and says: "The weaving was extremely loose, of thread as fine as a hair, of two strands of twisted flax fibre."--Auberville's "Ornement des Tissus," p. 4. Some marvellously fine specimens of such cambric may be seen at the South Kensington Museum and the British Museum.

[180] Not that we have any remains of flax linen from their tombs.

[181] It was carried thence, at a prehistoric date, to a.s.syria and Egypt.

[182] There is no proof that it was grown in Egypt till the fourteenth century A.D., when it is mentioned for the first time in a MS. of that date of the "Codex Antwerpia.n.u.s." See Yates, Appendix E, p. 470.

[183] Birdwood, p. 241.

[184] Puggaree. Yates says that cotton has always been supposed to be the best preserver against sunstroke, p.

341.

[185] _Carpas_, the proper Oriental name for cotton, is found in the same sense in the Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian languages. Yates, p. 341.

[186] In the aeneid, the garment of Chloreus the Phrygian is thus described:--

"His saffron chlamys, and each rustling fold Of muslin (_carpas_), was confined with glittering gold."

aeneid, xi. 775.

[187] Dakka muslins are the most esteemed. Their poetic names, "running water," "woven air," "evening dew," are more descriptive than pages of prose. See Birdwood, ii.

p. 259.

[188] Chintzes, calicoes, fine cloths, and strong tent-cloths, cotton carpets, &c., &c. Forbes Watson cla.s.sifies the calicoes as being white, bleached and unbleached, striped, &c., printed chintzes, or pintadoes. See Birdwood, p. 260.

[189] For Buckram and Fustian, see Rock, pp. lx.x.xv, lx.x.xvi. In Lady Burgeweny's (Abergavenny) will, 1434, she leaves as part of the furnishings of her bed "of gold of swan," two pairs of sheets of Raine (Rennes), and a pair of fustian. Anne Boleyn's list of clothes contains "Bokerams, for lining and taynting," gowns, sleeves, cloaks, and beds. Rock, lx.x.xvi. Renouard, in his "Romaunce Dictionary," quotes the following: "Vestae de Polpia e de Bisso qui est bacaram." For the antiquity of this fabric, see Herr Graf'schen's Catalogue of Textiles from the Fayoum.

[190] See Yates, p. 300, citing "Herod's silver apparel."

[191] "Indian Arts," ii. p. 237.

[192] Rock, p. xxv. Yates (p. 3) says they cut their gold for wearing apparel into thin plates, and did not draw it into wire, as it is translated in the Vulgate (Exodus x.x.xix.). The ephod made by Bezaleel was of fine linen, gold, violet, purple, and scarlet, twice dyed, with embroidered work. This tradition must have guided the artist who designed the ephod in the National Museum at Munich, in the seventeenth century, for a prince boy-bishop.

[193] Quintus Curtius says that many thousands, clothed in these costly materials, crowded out of Damascus to meet Alexander.

[194] There is a very ancient local tradition at Shush, that A.D. 640, in the reign of the Kaliph Omar, the body of the prophet Daniel was found, wrapped in cloth of gold, in a stone coffin; and, by order of the victorious general, it was placed in one of gla.s.s, and moored to the bridge which spanned the branch of the Euphrates flowing between the two halves of the city, so that the waters flowed over it. See "Chaldea and Susiana," by Loftus, and Sir G. W. Gore Ouseley's translation of a Persian version of "The Book of Victories." Alexander is said to have been buried in a gla.s.s coffin. (See Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," ii. p. 102, note .)

[195] Yates, pp. 367-70; Rock, p. xxvi.

[196] "Aura intexere eadem Asia invenit Attalus Rex unde nomen Attalicis."--Pliny, viii. c. 48, and Yates, p.

371. The reign of Attalus II. was B.C. 159-188.

[197] "And they did beat the gold into plates, and cut it into wires, and work it into the blue, and the purple, and the fine linen."--Exod. x.x.xix.

[198] See Yates, p. 371; and Bock, x.x.xiii.

[199] Pliny, x.x.xiii. In the Museum at Leyden there is a shred of gold cloth found in a tomb at Tarquinia, in Etruria. This is a compactly woven covering over bright yellow silk.

[200] Gold wire is still worked through leather at Guzerat. See Birdwood, p. 284, Ed. 1880. Marco Polo mentions this embroidery 600 years ago. Bk. iii. chap.

xxvi. (Yule). The hunting cuira.s.s of a.s.surbanipal (pl.

1) appears to be so worked, and of such materials. Also see Wilkinson, "Ancient Egyptians," vol. iii. p. 130.

This gold for weaving was beaten into shape with hammers.