Piece of Cut-work, for wall-hanging; ground, square of blue and red, with the upper border blue, the side one red; design, at top, knights and ladies talking, and each within a separate arch; in the body of the piece, the history of some dragon-slayer, figured in two horizontal rows of compartments, every one of which is contained within an archway with a head composed of three trefoil arches in a straight line, and resting on trefoil-brackets, and having, all through, birds and flowers in the spandrils. French, late 14th century. 7 feet 11 inches by 3 feet 4 inches.
Though now so rough and tattered this almost unique piece of “cut-work” (which French people would call appliqué, but better described by the English words), of so large a size, is valuable for its use in showing how, with cheap materials and a little knowledge of drawing, a very pleasing, not to say useful, article of decoration may be made, either for church appliance or household furniture.
Unfortunately the heads of the personages in the upper row are all cut away, but lower down we plainly see the history meant to be represented. Upon the first pane, to the left, we have a regal throne, upon which are sitting, evidently in earnest talk, a king, crowned and sceptred, and a knight, each belted with a splendid military girdle falling low down around the hips. Behind the knight stands his ’squire. In the next pane the enthroned king is giving his orders to the standing knight, toward whom his ’squire is bringing his sword, his shield, (argent a fess azure, surmounted by a demi-ox azure,) and a bascinet mantled and crested with the head of the same demi-ox or aurochs and its tall horns. After this we behold the knight with lance and shield, and his ’squire on horseback riding forth from the castle, at the gate of which stands the king, outstretching his hand and bidding farewell to the knight, who is turning about to acknowledge the good-bye. Going first upon the road, the knight, followed by the ’squire, seems asking the way to the dragon’s lair, from a gentleman whom they meet. The monster is then found in a wood, and the knight is tilting his spear into its fire-red maw. The next pane carrying on the romance is the first to the left in the second or lower series. Here the knight is unhorsed, and his good grey steed is lying on the field; but the knight himself, wielding his sword in both hands, is about to smite the dragon breathing long flames of fire towards him. Afterwards he catches hold of his fiery tongue, and is cutting it off. It would look as if the dragon, though wounded to the loss of its tongue, had not been worsted; for in the following compartment we behold the same knight all unarmed, but well mounted, galloping forth from a castle gate with a hound and some sort of bird, both with strings to them, by his horse’s side, and having found the dragon again, appears holding an argument with the beast that, for answer, shows the fiery stump of his tongue in his gaping mouth. But the dragon will not give himself up and be led away captive. Now, however, comes the grand fight. In a forest, with a bird perched on high upon one of the trees, the knight, dismounted from his horse, cuts off the head of the dragon, which, to the last, is careful to show his much shortened yet still fiery tongue to his victor. Now have we the last passage but one in the story. Upon his bended knee the triumphant knight is presenting the open-mouthed, tongueless, cut-off dragon’s head to the king and queen, both throned and royally arrayed, the princess, their daughter, standing by her mother’s side. The young maiden, no doubt, is the victor’s prize; but now—and it is the last chapter—the knight and lady, dressed in the weeds of daily life and walking forth upon the flowery turf, seem happy with one another as man and wife. The two panes at this part, and serving as a border, seem out of place, and neither has a connection with the other; in the first, just outside a castle wall, rides a crowned king followed by a horseman, evidently of low degree; and a column separates him from a large bed, lying upon which we observe the upper part of a female figure, the head resting upon a rich cushion; next to this, but put in anglewise to fill up the space, we have a crowned lady and a girdled knight, sitting beneath a tree, each with a little dog beside them.
The costume of both men and women in this curious piece of cut-work is that of the end of the 14th century. The parti-coloured dress of the men, their long pointed shoes, and the broad girdles, worn so low upon their hips by the king and knight, as well as the bascinet and helmet of the latter, with the horses’ trappings, all speak of that period; nor should we forget the sort of peaked head-dress, as well as the way in which the front hair of the ladies is thrown up into thick short curls. All the human figures, all the beasts, as well as the architecture, are outlined in thin leather or parchment once gilt, but now turned quite black. With the same leather, too, were studded the belts of the king and knight, and the spangles and golden enrichments of the ladies’ dress were of the same material. Saving here and there a few stitches of silk, everything else was of worsted, and that none of the finest texture. With such small means a good art-work was produced, as we see before us. The way in which each figure over the whole of this curious piece of cut-work is outlined by the leather edging strongly reminds us of the leadings in stained glass; in fact, both the one and the other are wrought after the same manner, and the principal difference between the window and the woollen hanging is the employment of an opaque instead of a transparent material. If the personages are dressed sometimes in blue, at others in crimson, it will be found that these colours alternate with the alternating tints of the panes upon which they are sewed.
So often do the passages in the romance here figured correspond with certain parts in the wild legend of our own far-famed “Sir Guy of Warwick,” that, at first sight, one might be led to think that as his renowned story was carried all through Christendom, we had before us his mighty feats and triumph over the dragon in Northumberland, set forth in this handiwork of some lady-reader of his story.
1371.
Worsted Work; ground, green; design, conventional flowers in yellow, with, at one end, a border of foliated boughs, the leaves of which are partly green, partly red, and an edging of a band made up of white, green, yellow, scarlet straight lines on the inner side; on three sides there is a narrow listing of bluish-green lace. German, 15th century. 4 feet 3¼ inches by 1 foot 10 inches.
In all probability this was intended and used as a carpet for some small altar-step. It is worked upon coarse canvas.