[529] See Woltmann and Woermann, who quote evidence as to works in painted glass as early as the ninth and tenth centuries in France and Germany (“History of Painting,” vol. i. pp. 316-339). They remark that the character of painted glass is nearly akin to textile decoration, that it is essentially flat and unpictorial. And doubtless there is an analogy between the two, but rather suggesting patchwork or cut work than legitimate embroidery.
[530] “Vasari,” ed. Monce, taf. v. p. 101.
[531] See plate [69], which is a fine altar-frontal of the plâteresque Spanish.
[532] The dress of the “Virgin del Sagrario” at Toledo, embroidered with pearls, and the chasuble of Valencia, worked with corals, show how profusely these costly materials were employed.
[533] See “The Industrial Arts of Spain,” pp. 250-264, by Don Juan F. Riano, and catalogues of Loan Exhibition by him for the South Kensington Museum series, 1881. The works of Spanish Queens and Infantas are to be seen at the Atocha, the church of the Virgin del Pilar at Madrid.
[534] There are most interesting examples of Scriptural subjects in Bock’s “Liturgische Gewänder,” i. taf. x. pp. 207, 208; taf. xi. pp. 239-278. These are of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; and we have some good fifteenth century bead-work in the South Kensington Museum.
[535] The splendid embroideries from Westminster Abbey, sold to Spanish merchants at the Reformation, now at Valencia, and the cope in the Museum at Madrid, are instances of these exportations. The Syon cope also was returned to England, after its long wanderings, about sixty years ago. I give its history by Dr. Rock in the [Appendix 6].
[536] For examples of this ornate and graceful, but frivolous style, we may remember the mosaic altar frontals throughout the basilica of St. Peter’s at Rome.
[537] See Dr. Rock’s “Catalogue of Textile Fabrics,” South Kensington Museum, Introduction, p. cxxxvi.
[538] Bock’s “Liturgische Gewänder,” i. taf. vi., vii., pp. 385-392. The emblematic meanings of stones is constantly alluded to in the Old Testament. Their symbolism has, therefore, a high authority and most ancient descent. In the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford is an illuminated copy of Philip de Than’s Bestiarium, composed for Adelais, second wife of Henry I.