Funeral Tent of Isi-em-Kheb. From Villiers Stuart’s “Funeral Tent of an Egyptian Queen.”
We have an instance of ancient “application” of about 600 years later, Greek in its beauty of design and execution. Alas! we can only ascertain, from tattered fragments taken out of a tomb in the Crimea, that it was parsemé with figures on horseback or in chariots. The border is very beautiful. Compare the fragments of which we have obtained a copy with the mantle of Demeter, from a Greek vase, and you will perceive how the styles correspond (Pl. [16], Fig. [23]). The ground material is of the finest woven wool, of a deep violet or purple colour, enriched with application of another fine woollen fabric of a most brilliant green, worked down, outlined and embroidered in white, black, and gold-coloured wool, apparently in stem stitches.[347] The accompanying illustration gives the effect and general design of the outer border only, in which the applied leaf is worked down in red, gold, and white.
It is much to be regretted that the centre of the mantle is so tattered and discoloured that it is impossible to do more than ascertain that the design that is embroidered on it consists of figures on horseback or in chariots, in spirited attitudes. The second and broader border is to be found (pl. [17]).
Fig. 23.
Narrow border of a Greek mantle.
“Opus consutum” cannot in any sense perhaps be the name of a stitch or stitches. But it applies to a peculiar style of embroidery employing certain stitches. It is the term given to all work cut out of plain or embroidered materials, and applied by “working down” to another material as grounding. It includes all raised and stuffed application in silk, woollen, and metal thread work. It has been given to all work in which the scissors are active agents, whether in cutting out the outlines or in incising the pattern, as in much of the linen and muslin embroideries of our day, now called “Madeira work,” of which a great deal was made in the first part of the century by English ladies who designed and collected patterns from each other, and gave the produce of their industry as gifts to their friends for collars, cuffs, and trimmings.[348]
“Cut work” is named by Chaucer, and is constantly to be found in inventories from his time to the beginning of the last century. At Coire, in the Grisons, is a very beautiful chasuble, of which the orphrey is of the school of the elder Holbein or Lucas Cranach, applied and raised so as to form a high relief. The figures are covered with satin and embroidered. The chasuble itself is of fine Saracenic silk, woven with golden inscriptions in broad stripes. The colours are brown, crimson, and gold.
