Feather work will be discussed under the heading of “Opus Plumarium.”[143]
On the surface of textiles many substances have been fastened down, in order to give brilliancy to the general effect—skins of insects, beetles’ wings, the claws and teeth of various animals.[144]
Asbestos linen is the only mineral substance, besides gold, silver, and tin,[145] that has been employed in embroidery. It has the remarkable quality of indestructibility by fire. Asbestos linen can be cleansed by fire instead of water.[146] It is a soapy crystal, found in veins of serpentine and cipolino in Cyprus, and other Greek islands. Pliny says it was woven for the funeral obsequies of monarchs, as it preserved the ashes apart, being itself unharmed by the fires of cremation. There are several fragments existing, found in tombs. One of these is in the British Museum.[147]
Marco Polo speaks of a stone fibre found at Chinchin, which answers in description to asbestos. It was spun by mixing it with threads of flax soaked in oil; and when woven, was passed through the fire to remove the flax and the oil.[148]
A miraculous napkin of asbestos was long kept at Monte Casino.
Coral, pearls, and beads of many forms have been used for the enrichment of embroideries, and for decorating textiles. The whole surface of the original fabric has often been entirely covered with them, or the pattern itself has been worked in nothing else. Pearls are constantly seen worked on dress, coats-of-arms, and embroidered portraits. Seed pearls, large coarse pearls, and sometimes fine and precious ones, were surrounded with gold thread embroidery. Coral was so much used in Sicilian embroideries, and so little elsewhere, that one gives the name of “Sicilian” to all such work; but occasionally we find coral embroideries in Spain and elsewhere (Pl. [32]).
Pl. 32.
Portion of Dalmatic embroidered by Blanche, Queen of Charles IV. of Bohemia (fifteenth century).
The figures in pearls, on a background of beaten gold. Bock’s “Liturgische Gewänder.” Vol. i. taf. xi.