Hood of a Cope, with figures embroidered on a very rich ground of red and gold velvet. Velvet, Florentine; the embroidery Flemish, late 15th century. 16 inches by 15½ inches.
About this period, Florence was noted for its truly rich and beautiful crimson velvets of a deep pile and artistically flowered in gold, and profusely sprigged, or rather dotted, with small loops of golden thread standing well up from the velvet ground; and in this production of Florentine contrivance we have a good example of its speciality.
The needlework is a very favourable specimen of Flemish embroidery, and the management of the three subjects shows that the hand that wrought them was quickened with a feeling love for the school of Hans Memling, who has made Bruges to be the pilgrimage of many an admirer of the beautiful in Christian art. The holy woman, who, according to the old tradition, gave a napkin to our Lord on His way to Calvary, is figured, at top, holding, outstretched before her to our view, this linen cloth showing shadowed on it the head of our Redeemer crowned with thorns and trickling with blood: the Saint became known as St. Veronica, and the handkerchief itself as the “Varnicle.” Just below, we have the Blessed Virgin Mary seated and holding on her knees the infant Saviour, before whom kneels St. Bernard, the famous abbot of Clairvaux, in the white Cistercian habit which he had received from our fellow-countryman, St. Stephen Harding, the founder of the Cistercian Order, about the year 1114. The group itself is an early example of a once favourite subject in St. Bernard’s life, thus referred to by Mrs. Jameson, in one of her charming books:—“It was said of him (St. Bernard) that when he was writing his famous homilies on ‘The Song of Songs which is Solomon’s,’ the Holy Virgin herself condescended to appear to him, and moistened his lips with the milk from her bosom; so that ever afterwards his eloquence, whether in speaking or in writing, was persuasive, irresistible, super-natural.” (Legends of the Monastic Orders, p. 142). Lower still, St. Bernard, with his abbot’s pastoral staff, cast upon the ground by his side, is praying, on bended knees, before a crucifix, from off of which our Redeemer has loosened Himself to fall into the arms of the saint, who was so fond of meditating on all the throes of our Lord upon the cross.
8334.
Piece of Crimson Velvet, spangled with gold and silver stars, and embroidered with leaves and flowers in gold thread, once dotted with precious stones. North Italian, end of the 15th century. 14½ inches by 5¼ inches.
The Genoese velvet of this piece is of a very deep ruby tone, deeper than usual; but the way in which it is ornamented should not be passed over by those who wish to learn one among the very effective styles of embroidering. The design consists chiefly of branches gracefully bent in all directions and sprouting out, here and there, with leaves and variously fashioned flowers which, from one example that still holds its tiny round-headed piece of coloured glass set in a silver gilt socket, bore in them mock precious stones, and perhaps seed-pearls. These branches themselves are made of common hempen string, edged on both sides with a thread of gold of a smaller bulk, and the flowers are heightened to good effect by the bright red stitches of the crimson silk with which the gold that forms them is sewed in; and the whole of the design appears to have been worked, first upon a strong canvas, from which it was afterwards cut and appliqué upon its velvet ground. All the space between the boughs is sprinkled rather thickly with six-rayed stars of gold and silver, but the latter ones have turned almost black. This piece was once the apparel for the lower border of an alb.
8335.