But a very few people, at the present moment, have the faintest idea about the labour, the money, the length of time often bestowed of old upon embroideries which had been sketched as well as wrought by the hands of men, each in his own craft the ablest and most cunning of that day. In behalf of this our own land, we may gather evidences strewed all over the present Introduction: as a proof of the self-same doings elsewhere, may be set forth a remarkable passage given, in his life of Antonio Pollaiuolo, by Vasari, where he says: “For San Giovanni in Florence there were made certain very rich vestments after the design of this master, namely, two dalmatics, a chasuble, and a cope, all of gold-wove velvet with pile upon pile—di broccato riccio sopra riccio—each woven of one entire piece and without seam, the bordering and ornaments being stories from the life of St. John, embroidered with the most subtile mastery of that art by Paolo da Verona, a man most eminent of his calling, and of incomparable ingenuity: the figures are no less ably executed with the needle than they would have been if Antonio had painted them with the pencil; and for this we are largely indebted to the one master for his design, as well as to the other for his patience in embroidering it. This work took twenty-six years for its completion, being wholly in close stitch—questi ricami fatti con punto serrato—which, to say nothing of its durability, makes the work appear as if it were a real picture limned with the pencil; but the excellent method of which is now all but lost, the custom being in these days to make the stitches much wider—il punteggiare piu largo—whereby the work is rendered less durable and much less pleasing to the eye.”[331] These vestments may yet be seen framed and glazed in presses around the sacristy of San Giovanni.[332] Antonio died A.D. 1498. The magnificent cope once belonging to Westminster Abbey, and now at Stonyhurst and exhibited here, A.D. 1862, is of one seamless piece of gorgeous gold tissue figured with bold wide-spreading foliage in crimson velvet, pile upon pile, and dotted with small gold spots; it came, it is likely, from the same loom that threw off these San Giovanni vestments, at Florence.”
[331] Vite de’ piu Eccellenti Pittori, &c., di G. Vasari, Firenze, F. Le Monnier, 1849. t. v. pp. 101, 102; English translation, by Mrs. Foster, t. ii. p. 229.
[332] Ib.
Our Old English Opus Consutum, or Cut Work,
in French, “appliqué,” is a term of rather wide meaning, as it takes in several sorts of decorative accompaniments to needlework.
When anything—flower, fruit, or figure—is wrought by itself upon a separate piece of silk or canvas, and afterwards sewed on to the vestment for church use, or article for domestic purpose, it comes to be known as “cut-work.” Though often mixed with embroidery, and oftener still employed by itself upon liturgical garments; oftenest of all, it is to be found in bed-curtains, hangings for rooms and halls, hence called “hallings,” and other items in household furniture.
Of cut-work in embroidery, those pieces of splendid Rhenish needlework with the blazonment of Cleves, all sewed upon a ground of crimson silk, as we see, [Nos. 1194-5], p. 21. The chasuble of crimson double-pile velvet, No. [78], p. 1, affords another good example. The niches in which the saints stand are loom-wrought, but those personages themselves are exquisitely done on separate pieces of fine canvass, and afterwards let into the unwoven spaces left open for them.
A Florentine piece of cut-work, No. [5788], p. 111, is alike remarkable for its great beauty, and the skill shown in bringing together so nicely, weaving and embroidery. Much of the architectural accessories is loom-wrought, while the extremities of the evangelists are all done by the needle; but the head, neck, and long beard are worked by themselves upon very fine linen, and afterwards put together after such a way that the full white beard overlaps the tunic. Another and a larger example, from Florence, of the same sort, is furnished us at No. [78], p. 1. Quite noteworthy too is the old and valuable vestment, [No. 673], p. 5, in this regard, for parts of the web in the back orphrey were left open, in the looms for the heads, and extremities of the figures there, to be done afterwards in needlework. Such a method of weaving was practised in parts of Germany, and the web from the looms of Cologne, No. [1329], p. 61, exhibits an example.
Other methods were bade to come and yield a quicker help in this cut-work. To be more expeditious, all the figures were at once shaped out of woven silk, satin, velvet, linen, or woollen cloth as wanted, and sewed upon the grounding of the article. Upon the personages thus fashioned in silk, satin, or linen, the features of the face and the contours of the body were wrought by the needle in very narrow lines done in brown silk thread. At times, even thus much of embroidery was set aside for the painting brush, and instances are to be found in which the spaces left uncovered by the loom for the heads and extremities of the human figures, are filled in by lines from the brush.
Often, too, the cut-work done in these ways is framed, as it were, with an edging, either in plain or gilt leather, hempen, or silken cord, exactly like the leadings of a stained glass window.