Textile Fabrics / A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Church-vestments, Dresses, Silk Stuffs, Needlework and Tapestries, forming that Section of the Museum

by Daniel Rock

1352.

Piece of Raised Velvet, brocaded in gold; ground, crimson; design, an oval with cusps inside and enclosing a large artichoke, the whole wreathed with a garland, and in gold. Italian, 16th century. 2 feet 3¾ inches by 8¼ inches.

This magnificent stuff is rendered still more valuable, as a specimen, from having much of its design of that rare kind of velvet upon velvet, or one pile put over, in design, another but lower pile. The state-rooms of a palace could alone have been hung with such sumptuous wall-coverings. Perhaps church vestments and hangings about the altar may have been sometimes made of such a heavy material.