The design of this stuff is rather curious from the inscribed scroll, the letter R of which is very Italian.
1307.
Silk and Gold Damask; ground, fawn-colour; design, amid a conventional foliation shooting out in places with large fan-like flowers in gold, braces of small birds on the wing and pairs of running dogs with two antelopes, couchant, biting a bough, both in gold. Sicilian, 14th century. 12½ inches by 8½ inches.
A very good design well drawn, but unfortunately not quite perfect in the specimen, the golden parts of which are much tarnished.
1308.
Silk Damask; ground, rosy fawn-coloured; design, within a wreath made up mostly of myrtle-leaves and trefoils, a lion’s head cabosed, above which is a bunch of vine-leaves shutting in a blue corn-flower, and at each side, in white, a word in imitated Arabic; excepting the blue centaurea and two white flowers in the wreath, all the rest is in light green. Sicilian, 14th century. 22 inches by 10¾ inches.
This well-varied pattern is nicely drawn, and shows the traditions of the Saracenic workmen who once flourished at Palermo.