Piece of Crimson Silk and Gold Tissue; the pattern, in gold, of conventional ornaments and circles containing birds and animals; the border consists of a repetition of a wyvern, an eagle displayed, and an elephant and castle. Italian, early 14th century. 11 inches by 4 inches.
This fine costly specimen of old silken stuff cannot fail in drawing to itself a particular attention from the heedful observer, by its gracefully elaborate design, so well carried out and done in such rich materials, but more especially by the symbols figured on it.
Though now unable to read or understand the meaning of all those emblematic hints so indistinctly uttered in its curious border, made up, as it is, of a wyvern, a stork embowed and statant on an elephant and castle, and a displayed eagle, we hopefully think that, at no far-off day, the key to it all will be found; then, perhaps, the piece before us, and many other such textiles in this very collection, may turn out to be no little help to some future writer while unravelling several entanglements in mediæval history.
Not for a single moment can we admit that through these heraldic beasts and birds the slightest reference was intended to be made to the four elements; heaven or the air, earth or its productions, fire and water, were quite otherwise symbolized by artists during the middle ages, as we may see in the nielli on a super-altar described and figured in the “Church of Our Fathers,” t. i. p. 257.
8278.
A SINDON or kind of Frontal, of Crimson Silk, on a linen or canvas lining, embroidered in silk and silver thread, with a large figure of our Lord dead, two standing angels, and, at each of its four corners, a half-length figure of an evangelist; the whole enclosed in a border inscribed with Sclavonic characters. Ruthenic work, middle of 17th century. 4 feet 6½ inches by 2 feet 10 inches.
In the centre of this curious ecclesiastical embroidery (for spreading outside the chancel, at the end of Holy Week, among the Greek,) our dead Lord, with the usual inscription, IC, XC, over Him, is figured lying full length, stretched out, as it were, upon a slab of stone which a sheet overspreads. His arms are at His sides as far as the elbows, where they bend so that His hands may be folded downward cross-wise upon His stomach, from which, to His knees, His loins are wrapped in a very full-folded cloth done in silver thread, but now nearly black from age. His skin is quite white, His hair and beard of a light brown colour, and His right side, His hands and feet are marked each with a blood-red wound; and the embroidery of His person is so managed as to display, in somewhat high relief, the hollows and elevations of the body’s surface; all around and beneath His head goes a nimbus marked inside with a cross very slightly pattee, the whole nicely diapered and once bright silver, but now quite black. Two nimbed angels, beardless and, in look, quite youthful, are standing, one at His head, the other at His feet, each, like the other, vested, as is the deacon at the present day, for mass, according to the Greek and Oriental rites; they wear the “chitonion” or alb, over that the “stoicharion” or dalmatic, and from the right—though it should have been from the left—shoulder falls the “orarion” or stole, upon which the Greek word “agios,” or holy, is repeated, just as a Greek deacon is shown in “Hierurgia,” p. 345; in his right hand each holds extended over our Lord, exactly as Greek deacons now do, at the altar, after the consecration of the Holy Eucharist, a long wand, at the end of which is a large round six-petaled flower-like ornament, having within it a cherub’s six-winged face; this is the holy fan, concerning which see the “Church of our Fathers,” iv. 197; and each has his left hand so raised up under his chin as to seemingly afford a rest for it. At each of the four corners of the frontal is the bust of an evangelist with a nimb about his head; in the upper left, “Agios o Theologos,” for so the Greeks still call St. John the Evangelist: in the lower left, St. Luke; in the upper right, St. Matthew; in the lower right, St. Mark; each is bearded, and the hair, whether on the head or chin, is shown in blue and white as of an aged man. While the heads and faces of all four evangelists are red, with the features distinguished by white lines, the angels have white faces and their hair is deep red with strokes in white to indicate the curly wavings of their locks. There are two crosses, rather pattee, done in silver thread, measuring 2½ inches, one above, the other below our Lord, in the middle of the ground, which is crimson, and wrought all over with gracefully twined flower-bearing branches; and each evangelist is shut in by a quarter-circle border charmingly worked with a wreath of leaves quite characteristic of our 13th century work. All the draperies, inscriptions, and ornamentation, now looking so black, were originally wrought in silver thread that is thus tarnished by age.
Among the liturgical rarities in this extensive and precious collection of needlework, not the least is the present Russo-Greek “sindon,” or ritual winding-sheet, used in a portion of the Eastern Church service on the Great Friday and Great Saturday, as the Orientals call our Good Friday and Holy Saturday.