Our Old English Opus Consutum, or Cut Work,
in French, “appliqué,” is a term of rather wide meaning, as it takes in several sorts of decorative accompaniments to needlework.
When anything—flower, fruit, or figure—is wrought by itself upon a separate piece of silk or canvas, and afterwards sewed on to the vestment for church use, or article for domestic purpose, it comes to be known as “cut-work.” Though often mixed with embroidery, and oftener still employed by itself upon liturgical garments; oftenest of all, it is to be found in bed-curtains, hangings for rooms and halls, hence called “hallings,” and other items in household furniture.
Of cut-work in embroidery, those pieces of splendid Rhenish needlework with the blazonment of Cleves, all sewed upon a ground of crimson silk, as we see, [Nos. 1194-5], p. 21. The chasuble of crimson double-pile velvet, No. [78], p. 1, affords another good example. The niches in which the saints stand are loom-wrought, but those personages themselves are exquisitely done on separate pieces of fine canvass, and afterwards let into the unwoven spaces left open for them.
A Florentine piece of cut-work, No. [5788], p. 111, is alike remarkable for its great beauty, and the skill shown in bringing together so nicely, weaving and embroidery. Much of the architectural accessories is loom-wrought, while the extremities of the evangelists are all done by the needle; but the head, neck, and long beard are worked by themselves upon very fine linen, and afterwards put together after such a way that the full white beard overlaps the tunic. Another and a larger example, from Florence, of the same sort, is furnished us at No. [78], p. 1. Quite noteworthy too is the old and valuable vestment, [No. 673], p. 5, in this regard, for parts of the web in the back orphrey were left open, in the looms for the heads, and extremities of the figures there, to be done afterwards in needlework. Such a method of weaving was practised in parts of Germany, and the web from the looms of Cologne, No. [1329], p. 61, exhibits an example.
Other methods were bade to come and yield a quicker help in this cut-work. To be more expeditious, all the figures were at once shaped out of woven silk, satin, velvet, linen, or woollen cloth as wanted, and sewed upon the grounding of the article. Upon the personages thus fashioned in silk, satin, or linen, the features of the face and the contours of the body were wrought by the needle in very narrow lines done in brown silk thread. At times, even thus much of embroidery was set aside for the painting brush, and instances are to be found in which the spaces left uncovered by the loom for the heads and extremities of the human figures, are filled in by lines from the brush.
Often, too, the cut-work done in these ways is framed, as it were, with an edging, either in plain or gilt leather, hempen, or silken cord, exactly like the leadings of a stained glass window.
Belonging to ourselves is an old English chasuble, the broad cross, at the back of which is figured with “The Resurrection of the Body.” The dead are arising from their graves, and each is wrought in satin, upon which the features on the face, and the lineaments of the rest of the body, are shown by thin lines worked with the needle in dark brown silk; and the edge, where each figure is sewed on the grounding, is covered with a narrow black silk cord, after much the same fashion as the lectern-veil here, [No. 7468], p. 141, of silk and gold cut work. Instances there are wherein, instead of needlework, painting was resorted to; [No. 8315], p. 189, shows us a fine art-work in its way, upon which we see the folds of the white linen garment worn by our Lord, marked by brown lines put in with the brush, while the head and extremities, and the ground strewed with flowers, are wrought with the needle. No. [8687], p. 258, gives us a figure where the whole of the person, the fleshes and clothing, are done in woven silk cut out, shaded and featured in colours by the brush with some little needlework here and there upon the garments. In that old specimen, No. [8713], p. 270, such parts of the design as were meant to be white are left uncovered upon the linen, and the shading is indicated by brown lines.
Perhaps in no collection open anywhere to public view could be found a piece of cut-work so full of teaching about the process, and its easy way of execution, as the one here, [No. 1370], p. 76; to it we earnestly recommend the attention of such of our readers as may wish to learn all about this method.
For the invention of cut-work or “di commesso,” as Vasari calls it, that writer tells us we are indebted to one of his Florentine countrymen: “It was by Sandro Botticelli that the method of preparing banners and standards in what is called cut-work, was invented; and this he did that the colours might not sink through, showing the tint of the cloth on each side. The baldachino of Orsanmichele is by this master, and is so treated,” &c., and this work serves to show how much more effectually that mode of proceeding preserves the cloth than do those mordants, which, corroding the surface, allow but a short life to the work; but as the mordants cost less, they are more frequently used in our day than the first-mentioned method.[333]
However accurate such a statement may be regarding Italy in general, and Tuscany in particular, it is, nevertheless, utterly untrue as applicable to the rest of the world. In this collection may be seen a valuable piece of this same cut-work—or as Vasari would call it “di commesso”—by French hands, fraught with a story out of our English Romance, and done towards the end of the fourteenth century, [No. 1370], p. 76. Now, as Botticelli was born A.D. 1457, and died A.D. 1515, he came into being almost a whole century too late to have originated such a process of ornamental needlework, which was well known and practised in these parts so many years before the birth of that Florentine painter.
[333] Vite de’ piu Eccellenti Pittori, &c., di G. Vasari, t. v. p. 121; English translation, t. ii. p. 239.
There are some accessories, in mediæval embroidery, which ought not to be overlooked here.
In some few instances,