[258] Church Furniture, ed. Peacock, p. 94.
[259] Fabric Rolls, p. 302.
[260] Oliver’s Exeter, p. 356.
French silks, now in such extensive use, were until the end of the sixteenth century not much cared for in France itself, and seldom heard of abroad. The reader, then, must not be astonished at finding so few examples of the French loom, in a collection of ancient silken textiles.
France, as England, used of old to behold her women, old and young, rich and poor, while filling up their leisure hours in-doors, at work on a small loom, and weaving certain narrow webs, often of gold, and diapered with coloured silks, as we mentioned before (p. [xxii].) Of such French wrought stuffs belonging to the thirteenth century, some samples are described at pp. [29], [130], [131].
In damasks, her earliest productions are of the sixteenth century, and are described at pp. [13], [205], [206]; and the last is a favourable example of what the loom then was in France; everything later is of that type so well known to everybody. In several of her textiles a leaning towards classicism in design is discernible.
Though so few, her cloths of gold, pp. [9], [15], are good, more especially the fine one at p. [104].
Her velvets, too, pp. [14], [89], [106], are satisfactory.
Satins from France are not many here.
The curious and elaborately ornamented gloves, p. [105], which got into fashion, especially for ladies, at the end of the sixteenth century, will be a welcome object for such as are curious in the history of women’s dress, in France and England.