Piece of Embroidery in Silk, on linen ground; the subject, partly needlework, and partly sketched in, represents the Adoration of the three Kings. German, 14th century. 12 inches square.
Though in the style of that period, it is roughly done, and by no means a good example.
8309.
Piece of Silk and Gold Tissue; the ground, lilac-blue; the pattern, in gold, represents the Annunciation. Florentine, late 14th century. 17¾ inches by 12 inches.
This is another of those many beautiful and artistic exemplars of the loom given to the world, but more especially for the use of the Church, by North Italy, during the 14th and 15th centuries. The treatment of the subject figured on this fragment—the Annunciation—is quite typical, in its drawing and invention, of the feelings which spread themselves all over the sweet gentle Umbrian school of painting, from the days of its great teacher the graceful Giotto. The lover, too, of ecclesiastical symbolism will, in this small piece, find much to draw his attention to it: the dove, emblem of the Holy Ghost, is in one place flying down from heaven with an olive-branch, and hovers over the head of the Blessed Virgin Mary; in another place, it stands at rest behind her, and bearing in its beak a lily-like flower; the angel Gabriel, clothed in a full, wide-flowing alb, carrying in his left hand a wand—the herald’s sign—tipped with a fleur-de-lis, to show not only that he was sent from God, but for an especial purpose, is on his bended knee before the mother of our Lord, while, with his right hand uplifted in the act of blessing according to the Latin rite, he utters the words of his celestial message. The colour, too, of the ground—lilac-blue, emblematic of what is heavenly—must not be overlooked.
8310.
Fragment of a Vestment for Church use; embroidered in silk and gold, on a dark blue linen ground, with figures of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and Infant, our Saviour, and St. John. German, 15th century. 3 feet 6 inches by 10 inches.
This fine example of the German needle, in its design and treatment, calls to mind the remarkably painted folding altar-piece by Master Stephen Sothener, A.D. 1410, in the chapel of St. Agnes, at the east end of Cologne Cathedral.