1274.
Silk Damask; ground, fawn-colour; design, parrots, and giraffes in pairs, amid floriated ornamentation, all, excepting the parts done in gold, of the tint of the ground. Sicilian, 13th century. 20½ inches by 10½ inches.
Upon an egg-shaped figure, nicely filled in with graceful floriated ornaments, stand two parrots, breast to breast, but with heads averted, which (as well as their pinion-joints, marked by a broad circle crowded with little rings on their wings, and legs and claws) are wrought in threads of gold, all now so tarnished as to look as if first worked in some dull purple silk. Their long broad perpendicular tails have the feathers shown by U shaped lines, looking much like the kind of ornamentation noticed under Nos. [8591], [8596], [8599]. Below, and back to back, or—as some may choose to see them—affronted, and biting the stems of the foliage, are two giraffes, with one leg raised—may be better described as tripping. They are specked all over with quatrefoil spots, and have head and hoofs done in gold, now faded to black. This stuff is as beautiful in design as substantial in its material, being all of good fine silk; though so poor and sparing was the gold upon the thread, that it has quite faded. From the curve at the upper end, this piece seems to have been cut out of an old chasuble.
1275.
Silk Damask (made up of four pieces); ground, brown, once purple; design, in gold thread and coloured silks, griffins, eagles, and flowers. Sicilian, early 13th century. 19½ inches by 19¼ inches.
At top we have a row of griffins looking to the east, mostly wrought in gold, but relieved on coloured silks, and having at the pinion-joints of the wing that singular circle, filled in with a small design; then a row of conventional flowers in red, crimson, green, and white, and, last of all, a row of eagles at rest, done mostly in gold, slightly shaded with green, and looking west. The beasts and birds are admirably drawn, and when the stuff was new it must have been very fine and effective, though now the gold looks shabby.
1276.