7034.
Silk Damask; ground, crimson silk; pattern, in gold thread, two very large lions, and two pairs, one of very small birds, the other of equally small dragons, and an ornament like a hand looking-glass. Oriental, 14th century. 2 feet 4 inches by 2 feet.
The large lions, which strongly resemble, in their fore-legs, the Nineveh ones in the British Museum, are placed addorsed regardant and looking upon two very small birds, while between their heads stands what seems like a looking-glass, upon a stem or handle; at the feet of these huge beasts are two little long-tailed, open-mouthed, two-legged dragons. The whole of this design now appears to be in coarse yellow thread, which once was covered with gold, but so sparingly and with such poor metal that not a speck of it can now be detected anywhere in this large specimen. The probability is that this stuff was wrought in some part of Syria, for the European market; at the lions’ necks are broad collars bearing two lines or sentences in imitated Arabic characters. Copes and chasubles for church use during the Middle Ages were often made of silks like this. Dr. Bock has figured this very piece in his “Geschichte der Liturgischen Gewänder des Mittelalters,” t. i. pl. iv.