1254.
Silk Damask; ground, crimson; design, a diapering of birds pecking at a cone-like ornament ending in a fleur-de-lis, all in yellow. Sicilian, 14th century. 5 inches by 4 inches.
A very thin stuff with a pattern of a small but pretty design. What the birds are with their long square tails is hard to guess; so, too, with respect to the ornament between them, like a fir-cone purfled at its sides with crockets, and made to end in a flower, which may have some reference to the French family of Anjou, once reigning in Sicily. The stuff itself is poor and may have been woven for linings to richer silks.