Quilt for a Bed; ground, an amber-coloured cotton, figured with a net-work of ovals and squares in diapered raised crimson velvet, the ovals filled in with a floriation of crimson and green raised velvet; the squares, with a small vase having a flower-bearing tree, crimson raised velvet. This is the centre, which is bordered by a like kind of stuff 11 inches deep; the ground, primrose yellow; the pattern, ovals, enclosing a foliage bearing crimson and amber-tinted flowers, and placed amid boughs bearing the same coloured flowers; on both edges this border has three stripes—two crimson raised velvet, the third and broader one a pattern in shades of purple—all on a light yellow ground; at the ends of the quilt hangs a long party-coloured fringe of linen thread; the lining of it is fine Chinese silk of a bright amber, figured with sprigs of crimson flowers, shaded yellow and white. Genoese, 17th century. 5 feet 11 inches by 3 feet 10½ inches.
627.
Quilt for a Bed; ground, brown canvas; pattern, all embroidered scales or scollops jagged like a saw, and overlapping each other in lines, some blue and green shaded white or yellow, some amber. The border is a broad scroll of large flowers, among which one at each corner, the fleur-de-lis, is conspicuous. This again has a scollop edging of flowers separated by what seem two Cs interlaced. French, 17th century. 7 feet 8 inches by 5 feet 8 inches.
673.
Chasuble of green silk, figured with animals and scrolls in gold, with an embroidered orphrey at back, and a plain orphrey in front. Sicilian, early 13th century. 3 feet 9¾ inches by 2 feet 2 inches.
This very valuable chasuble is very important for the beauty of its stuff; but by no means to be taken as a sample in width of the fine old majestic garment of that name, as it has been sadly cut down from its former large shape, and that, too, at no very distant period. Though now almost blue, its original colour was green. The warp is cotton, the woof silk, and that somewhat sparingly put in; the design showing heraldic animals, amid gracefully twining branches all in gold and woven, is remarkably good and free. The front piece is closely resembling the back, but, on a near and keen examination, may be found to differ in its design from the part behind; on this we see that it must have consisted of a lioncel passant gardant, langued, and a griffin; on that on the part in front, a lioncel passant, and a lioncel passant regardant. When the chasuble was in its first old fulness, the design on both parts came out in all its minuteness; now, it is so broken as not to be discernible at first. In front the orphrey is very narrow, and of a sort of open lace-work in green and gold; on the back the orphrey is very broad, 1 foot 1½ inches, and figured with the Crucifixion, the Blessed Virgin Mary standing on our Lord’s right hand, St. John the Evangelist on His left; below, the Blessed Virgin Mary crowned as a queen and seated on a royal throne, with our Lord as a child sitting on her lap; lower still, St. Peter with two keys—one silver, the other gold—in his left hand, and a book in the right; and St. Paul holding a drawn sword in his right, and a book in his left; and, last of all, the stoning of St. Stephen. All the subjects are large, and within quatrefoils; as much of the body of our Lord as is uncovered on the Cross, and the heads, hands, and feet in the other figures, as well as those parts of the draperies not gold, are wrought by needle, while the golden garments of the personages are woven in the loom.
This very interesting chasuble has a history belonging to it, given in “The Gentleman’s Magazine,” t. lvi. pp. 298, 473, 584, by which we are taught to believe that it has always been in England; belonging once to it were a stole and maniple, upon which latter appliance were four armorial shields, which would lead to the idea that it had been expressly made for the chapel of Margaret de Clare, Countess of Cornwall, who is known to have been alive A.D. 1294. That time quite tallies with the style of the stuff of which this chasuble is made; and though now so worn and cut away, it is one of the most curious in this or any other country, and particularly valuable to an English collection.