The ground is worked with coloured silks and threads of fine wire closely twisted round with coloured silks, and the sky, painted in gradations of pink in water-colours, is worked sparsely with long stitches of blue silk.
The lower side shows a female figure worked in a similar way; in this case she bears in her right hand some kind of wand or spray, which has nearly worn off, and in her left a bunch of corn or grapes, or something of that kind which has also badly worn away. If the first figure may be considered to represent Peace, this one may perhaps be Plenty. She wears a deep purplish skirt, with full over-garment and body of the same colour, with an under-jacket of white and gold. On her dark hair she has a blue flower with red leaves. Her feet are bare. The ground and sky are both worked in the same way as the other side. Both figures are enclosed in a flat oval border of gold thread, broad at the top and narrowing towards the foot. In the corners are symmetrical arabesques thickly worked in gold, and within the larger spaces in each corner-piece are the 'remains' of feathered caterpillars, now skeleton forms of threads only. The back of the book is particularly good, and most beautifully worked. It is divided into five panels, within each of which is a conventional flower, a cornflower alternating with a carnation, and the colours of all of these are marvellously fresh and effective. Among embroidered panelled backs it is probably the finest specimen existing.
Emblemes Chrestiens, par Georgette de Montenay. ms. à Lislebourg. [Edinburgh] 1624.
37—Emblemes Chrestiens. MS 1624.
Charles i., when he was Prince of Wales, often used the book-stamps that had been cut for his brother Henry, and he also particularly liked the triple plume of ostrich feathers. It occurs, as has been shown, on one of Prince Henry's velvet-bound books, and it forms the central design on the satin binding of an exquisite manuscript written by Esther Inglis, a celebrated calligraphist, who lived in the seventeenth century. It is a copy of the Emblemes Chrestiens, by Georgette de Montenay, dedicated to Prince Charles, covered in red satin embroidered with gold and silver threads, cords, and guimp, with a few pearls, measuring 11¼ by 7¾ inches. In the centre is the triple ostrich plume within a coronet, enclosed in an oval wreath of laurel tied with a tasselled knot. A rectangular border closely filled with arabesques runs parallel to the edges of the boards, and there is a fleuron at each of the inner corners. In all cases the design is outlined in gold cord, and the thick parts of the design are worked in silver guimp. There are several spangles, and on the rim of the coronet are three pearls.
New Testament. London, 1625.
38—New Testament. London, 1625.
One of the most curious embroidered satin bindings still left is now in the Bodleian Library, and a slightly absurd tradition about it says that the figure of David, which certainly is something like Charles i., is clothed in a piece of a waistcoat that belonged to that king.