Fig. 21.
Feather patterns, Egyptian.
These survivals help us to understand the casual mention we find in classical authors, of the works of the Plumarii, which appellation was given at last to all embroiderers who were not Phrygians.[335]
We have other glimpses of Oriental feather-work in different parts of India.[336]
The use of feathers is common in the islands of the Pacific. It is native to the Sandwich islanders; and M. Jules Remy describes the Hawaiian royal mantle, which was being constructed of yellow birds’ feathers through seven consecutive reigns, and was valued in Hawaii at 5,000,000 francs. A mantle of this description is the property of Lady Brassey.
In Africa, ancient Egyptian art furnishes us with traditional feather patterns and head-dresses; and Pigafetta tells us of costumes of birds’ skins, worn in the kingdom of Congo in the sixteenth century for their warmth; sea-birds’ feathers being highly esteemed.[337]
In America, where birds are most splendid, the art of the feather worker was carried to the greatest perfection. It was found there by the Spaniards, and recorded in all their writings for its beauty of design and execution, and for its great value, equal to that of gold and precious stones.
Though now looked down upon, as being a semi-barbarous style of decoration, because it exists no longer except in semi-barbarous countries, we must consider feather work as a relic of a past higher civilization which has died out, rather than simply as the effort of the savage to deck himself in the brightest colours attainable.
Feather-work is a lost art, but the name of “opus plumarium” remains, and proves that it was still recognized as such in the days of Roman luxury. The name survived when the practice was all but forgotten in Europe,[338] and the art itself disused, probably, because the birds of our continent rarely have any lovely plumage to tempt the eye.