From that date we find continually mention of such work by nuns and ladies.[323] In England it was especially called “nuns’ work” (plate [42]). There is a great survival of this stitchery in Italy amongst the peasantry. They have always adorned their smocks and aprons, and their linen head-coverings, and the borders of sheets for great occasions, with patterns in “flat stitches,” “cut stitches,” and “drawn work.” The Greek peasants do the same. In Germany will be found much curious white embroidery, of designs which show their antiquity; and from Spain we get “Spanish work” in black, on white linen, which is nearly allied to the stitches of white work.
Pl. 39.
Embroidery imitated in marble on the tomb of a knight, in the Church of the Ara Cœli, Rome.
Lord Arundel of Wardour possesses a linen cover for a tabernacle (or else it is a processional cloak) which is of the purest Hispano-Moorish design, and unrivalled in beauty. It is embroidered in Spanish stitches in white thread, on the finest linen, and is intersected with fine lace insertion (pl. [40]). It is said to have been found in the time of Elizabeth with some other articles in a dry well; among them a little satin shoe, of which the shape proves its date to be of the end of Henry VIII.’s reign. Russian embroidery, consisting of geometrical patterns in red, blue, and black thread, is of this class.
Pl. 40.
Processional Cloak, time of Henry VIII., belonging to Lord Arundel of Wardour.