This is not said wholly in praise of shading. Embroidery ought, for the most part, to do very well without it. The point to insist upon is that, if shading is employed at all, it should mean something, and not be mere fumbling after form.

The charm of shading in embroidery is not the roundness of form which you get, but the gradation of colour which it gives. This may be very delicately and subtly got by split-stitch, which renders that stitch so valuable in the rendering of flesh tints. But the blending of colour into colour which is universally admired is not quite so admirable as people think. One may easily employ too many shades of colour, easily merge them too imperceptibly one into the other, getting only unmeaning softness. An artist prefers to see few shades employed, and those chosen with judgment and placed with deliberate intention. If they mean something, there is no harm in letting it be seen where they meet: broad masses give breadth: vagueness generally means ignorance. That is, perhaps, why one dislikes it, and why it is so common.



FIGURE EMBROIDERY.

To an accomplished needlewoman embroidery offers every scope for art, short of the pictorial; and the artist is not only justified in lavishing work upon it, but often bound to do so, more especially when it comes to working with materials in themselves rich and costly. A beautiful material, if you are to better it (and if not why work upon it at all?), must be beautifully worked. Costly material is worth precious work; and there should be by rights a preciousness about the needlework employed upon it, preciousness of design and of execution. To put the value into the material is mere vulgarity.

It seems to an artist almost to go without saying, that the labour on work claiming to be art should be in excess of the value of the stuff which goes to make it. What we really prize is the hand work and the brain work of the artist; and the more precious the stuff he employs, the more strictly he is bound to make artistic use of it. I do not mean by that pictorial use. You can get, no doubt, with the needle effects more or less pictorial—most often less; but, when got, they are usually at the best rather inferior to the picture of which they are a copy.

Work done should be better always than the design for it, which was a project only, a promise. The fulfilment should be something more. A design of which the promise is not likely to be fulfilled in the working-out is, for its purpose, ill-designed. To say that you would rather have the drawing from which it was done (and that is what you feel about "needle pictures") is most severely to condemn either the designer or the worker, or perhaps both. Only a competent figure painter, for example, can be trusted to render flesh with the needle; her success is in proportion to her skill with the implement, but in any case less than what might be achieved in painting: then why choose the needle?

Admitting that a painter who by choice or chance takes to the needle may paint with it satisfactorily enough, that does not go to prove the needle a likely tool to paint with. It is anything but that. There was never a greater mistake than to suppose, as some do who should know better, that, to raise embroidery to the rank of art, figure work is necessary. The truth is that only by rare exception does embroidered figure work rise to the rank of art: the rule is that it is degraded, the more surely as it aims at picture. And that is why, for all that has been done in the way of wonderful picture work, say by the Italians and the Flemings of the Early Renaissance, the pictorial is not the form of design best suited to embroidery.

Needlework, like any other decorative craft, demands treatment in the design, and the human figure submits less humbly to the necessary modification than other forms of life. Animals, for instance, lend themselves more readily to it, and so do birds; fur and feathers are obviously translatable into stitches. Leaves and flowers accommodate themselves perhaps better still; but each is best when it is only the motive, not the model, of design. If only, then, on account of the greater difficulty in treating it, the figure is not the form of design most likely to do credit to the needle, and it is absurd to argue that, figure work being the noblest form of design, therefore the noblest form of embroidery must include it.

The embroidress entirely in sympathy with her materials will not want telling that the needle lends itself better to forms less fixed in their proportions than the human figure; the decorator will feel that there is about fine ornament a nobility of its own which stands in need of no pictorial support; the unbiassed critic will admit that figure design of any but the most severely decorative kind is really outside the scope of needle and thread; and that the desire to introduce it arises, not out of craftsmanlikeness, but out of an ambition which does not pay much regard to the conditions proper to needlework. Those conditions should be a law to the needlewoman. What though she be a painter too? She is painting now with a needle. It is futile to attempt what could be better done with a brush. She should be content to work the way of the needle. Common sense asks that much at least of loyalty to the art she has chosen to adopt.

Wonderful and almost incredibly pictorial effects have been obtained with the needle; but that does not mean to say it was a wise thing to attempt them. The result may be astonishing and yet not worth the pains. The pains of flesh-painting with the needle (if not the impossibility of it for all practical purposes) is confessed by the habit which arose of actually painting the flesh in water colour upon satin. Paint on satin, if you like. There may be occasions when there is no time to stitch, and it is necessary for some ceremonial and more or less theatric purpose to paint what had better have been worked. The more frankly such work acknowledges its temporary and makeshift character the better. Scene painting is art, until you are asked to take it for landscape painting. Anyway, the mixture of painting and embroidery is not to be endured; and it is a poor-spirited embroidress who will thus confess her weakness and call on painting to help her out. It does not even do that, it fails absolutely to produce the desired effect. The painting quarrels with the stitching, and there is after all no semblance of that unity which is the very essence of picture.



An instance of painted flesh occurs upon Illustration 91. Can any one, in view of the bordering to the picture, doubt that the worker had much better have kept to what she could do, and do perfectly, ornament? An example, on the other hand, of what may be done in the way of expressing action in the fewest and simplest chain stitches (if only you know the form you want to represent and can manage your needle) is given in the wee figures in the landscape above (78).



In speaking of the necessary treatment of the human figure (as of other natural form) in needlework, it is not meant to contend that there is one only way of treating it consistently, or that there are no more than two or three ways. There are various ways, some no doubt yet to be devised, but they must be the ways of the needle. The flesh, of course, is the main difficulty. A Gothic practice, and not the least happy one, was to show the flesh in the naked linen of the ground, only just working the outlines of the features in black or brown. Another way was to work the face in split stitch, as already explained, and over that the markings of the features, the fine lines in short satin-stitches, the broader in split-stitch, as shown in the figure of King Abias in Illustration 87.

The general treatment of the figure there is of course in the manner of the 14th century, better suited, from its severe simplicity, for rendering in needlework than later and more pictorial forms of composition. That needlework can, however, in capable hands, go farther than that is shown in Illustration 79, a rather threadbare specimen of 15th century work, in which the character of the man's face is admirably expressed. It is first worked in short, straight stitches, all of white, and over that the drawing lines are worked in brown. The artist gets her effect in the simplest possible way, and apparently with the greatest ease.



More like painting is the head in Illustration 80, worked in short stitches of various shades, which give something of the colour as well as the modelling of flesh. This is a triumph in its way. It goes about as far as the needle can go, and further than, except under rare conditions, it ought to go. But it may do that and yet be needlework.

Equally wonderful in their miniature way are the faces of the little people on Illustration 81, about the size of your finger nail. They are worked in solid satin-stitch, and the two layers of silk (back and front) give a substance fairly thick but at the same time yielding, so that when the stitches for the mouth and eyes are sewn tightly over it they sink in, and, as it were, push up the floss between and give relief. The nose is worked in extra satin-stitch over the other, and the slight depression at the end of the stitch gives lines of drawing. This trenches upon modelling, but, on such a minute scale, does not amount to very pronounced departure from the flat. The method employed does not lend itself to larger work.

The last word on the question as to what one may do with the needle is, that you may do what you can; but it is best to seek by means of it what it can best do, and always to make much of the texture of silk, and of the quality of pure and lustrous colour which it gives—in short, to work with your materials.



THE DIRECTION OF THE STITCH.

The effect of any stitch is vastly varied, according to the use made of it. Satin-stitch, it was shown (38), worked in twisted silk, ceases to have any appearance of satin; and it makes all the difference whether the stitches are long or short, close together or wide apart. More important than all is the direction of the stitch. By that alone you can recognise the artist in needlework.

The DIRECTION of the stitch deserves consideration from two points of view—that of colour and that of form. First as to colour. It is not sufficiently realised that every alteration in the direction of the stitch means variety of tone, if not of tint. Take a feather in your hand, and turn it about, so that now one side of the quill now the other catches the light; or notice the alternate stripes of brighter and greyer green on a fresh-trimmed lawn, where the roller has bent the blades of grass first this way and then that. So it is with the colour of silken stitches. The pattern opposite (82) looks as if it had been embroidered in two shades of silk; in the work itself it has still more that appearance; but it is all in one shade of brownish gold: the difference which you see is merely the effect of light upon it. The horizontal stitches, as it happens, catch the light; the vertical ones do not. Had the light come from a different point, the effect might have been reversed. If there had been diagonal stitches from right to left, they would have given a third tint; and, if there had been others from left to right, they would have given a fourth.



Suppose a pattern in which the leaves were worked horizontally, the flowers vertically, and the stalks in the direction of their growth, all in one stitch and in one colour, there would be a very appreciable difference in tone between leaves, flowers, and stalks. In gold, the difference would be yet more striking. And that is one reason why gold backgrounds are worked in diapers; not so much for the sake of pattern as to get variety of broken tint.

In the famous Syon Cope the direction of the stitching is frankly independent of the design. That is to say, that, while the pattern radiates naturally from the neck, the stitches do not follow suit, but go all one way—the way of the stuff. This, though rather a brutal solution of the difficulty, saves all afterthought as to what direction the stitches shall take; but it has very much the effect of weaving. The embroiderer of the 13th century was not afraid of that (aimed at it, perhaps?), and was, apparently, afraid of letting go the leading strings of warp and weft.

When stitches follow the direction of the form embroidered, accommodating themselves to it, all manner of subtle change of tone results. You get, not only variety of colour, but more than a suggestion of form.

That is the second point to be considered.



The direction taken by the stitch always helps to explain the drawing; or, if the needlewoman cannot draw, to show that she cannot—as, for example, in the tulip herewith (83). A less intelligent management of the stitch it would be hard to find. The needlestrokes, far from helping in the very slightest degree to explain the folding over of the petals, directly contradict the drawing. The flower might almost have been designed to show how not to do it; but it is a piece of old work, quite seriously done, only without knowing. The embroidress is free, of course, to work her stitches in a direction which does not express form at all, so as to give a flat tint, in which is no hint of modelling; but the intention is here quite obviously naturalistic. The rendering below (84) shows the direction the stitches should have taken. The turn-over of the petals is even there not very clearly expressed, but that is the fault of the drawing (very much on a par with the workmanship), from which it would not have been fair to depart.



A more clever fulfilment of the naturalistic intention is to be seen in Illustration 76. The drawing of the doves is in the rather loose manner of the period of Marie Antoinette; but the treatment of the stitch is clever in its way—the way, as I have said, rather of painting than of embroidery, giving as it does the roundness of the birds' bodies but no hint of actual feathering, such as you find in the bird in Illustration 85. There, every stitch helps to explain the feathering. By a discreet use of what I must persist in calling the same stitch (that is, satin-stitch and the variety of it called plumage-stitch) the embroiderer has rendered with equal perfection the sweep of the broad wing feathers and the fluffy feathering of the breast. It is by means of the direction of the stitch, too, that the drawing of the neck is so perfectly rendered.



The direction of the stitch is varied to some purpose in the head in Illustration 80, where the flesh is all in straight upright stitches, whilst the hair is stitched in the direction of its growth.

The five petals on the satin-stitch sampler (Illustration 36)—to descend from the masterly to the elementary—show something of the difference it makes in what direction the stitch is worked. It matters more, of course, in some stitches than in others; but in most cases the direction of the stitch suggests form, and needs accordingly to be considered.

It scarcely needs further pointing out how the direction of the stitch may help to explain the construction of the form, as in the case of leaves, for example, where the veining may be suggested; or of stalks, where the fibre may be indicated. There is no law as to the direction of stitch, except that it should be considered. You may follow the direction of the forms, you may cross them, you may deliberately lay your stitches in the most arbitrary manner; but, whatever you do, you must do it with intelligent purpose. An artist or a workwoman can tell at once whether your stitch was laid just so because you meant it or because you knew no better.

Having laid your stitches deliberately, it is best to leave them, and not to work over them with other stitching. Stitching over stitching was resorted to whenever elaboration was the fashion; but the simpler and more direct method is the best. The way the veins are laid in cord over the satin-stitch in the lotus leaves in Illustration 40 is the one fault to be found with an all but perfect piece of work.

The stitching over the laid silver mid-rib in Illustration 92 is better judged. It may be said, generally speaking, that except where, as in the case of laid-work, the first stitching was done in anticipation of a second, and the work would be incomplete without it, stitching over stitches should be indulged in only with moderation.

Stitching is sometimes done not merely over stitches, but upon the surface of them, not penetrating the ground-stuff. Unless, in such a case, the first stitching is of such compact character as to want no strengthening, it amounts almost to a sin against practicality not to take advantage of the second stitching to make it firmer.



CHURCH WORK.

It is customary to draw a distinction between church, or ecclesiastical as it is called, and other embroidery; but it is a distinction without much difference. Certain kinds of work are doubtless best suited to the dignity of church ceremonial, and to the breadth of architectural decoration; accordingly, certain processes of work have been adopted for church purposes, and are taken as a matter of course—too much as a matter of course. The fact is, work precisely like that employed on vestments and the like (Illustration 86) was used also for the caparison of horses and other equally profane purposes.



Practical considerations, alike of ceremonial and decoration, make it imperative that church work should be effective: religious sentiment insists that it should be of the best and richest, unsparingly, and even lavishly given; common sense dictates that the loving labour spent upon it should not be lost. And these and other such considerations involve methods of work which, by constant use for church purposes, have come to be classed as ecclesiastical embroidery. But there is no consecrated stitch, no stitch exclusively belonging to the church, none probably invented by it. For embroidery is a primitive art—clothes were stitched before ever churches were furnished; and European methods of embroidery are all derived from Oriental work, which found its way westwards at a very early date. Phrygia (sometimes credited with the invention of embroidery) passed it on to Greece, and Greece to Italy, the gate of European art.

Christianity produced new forms of design, but not new ways of work. The methods adopted in the nunneries of the West were those which had already been perfected in the harems of the East.

Embroidery for the church must naturally take count of the church, both as a building and as a place of worship; but, as apart from all other needlework, there is no such thing as church embroidery; and the branding of one very dull kind of thing with that name is in the interest neither of art nor of the church, but only of business. "Ecclesiastical art" is just a trade-term, covering a vast amount of soulless work. There is in the nature of things no reason why art should be reserved for secular purposes, and only manufacture be encouraged by the clergy. The test of fitness for religious service is religious feeling; but that is hardly more likely to be found in the output of the church furnisher (trade patterns overladen with stock symbols), than in the stitching of the devout needlewoman, working for the glory of God, in whose service of old the best work was done.

Many of the examples of old work given on these pages are from church vestments, altar furniture, and the like; information on that point will be found in the descriptive index of illustrations at the beginning of the book; but they are here discussed from the point of view of workmanship, with as little reference as possible to religious or other use: that is a question apart from art.

The distinguishing features of church work should be, in the first place, its devotional spirit, and, in the second, its consummate workmanship. In it, indeed, we might expect to find work beyond the rivalry of trade controlled by conditions of time and money. Even then it would be but the more perfect expression of the same art which in its degree ennobled things of civic and domestic use.

Church embroidery, as usually practised in these days, is not only the most frigid and rigid in design, but the hardest and most mechanical in execution—which last arises in great part from the way it is done. It is not embroidered straight upon the silk or velvet which forms the groundwork of the design, but separately on linen. The pattern thus worked is cut out, and either pasted straight on to the ground-stuff, or, if the linen is at all loose, first mounted on thin paper and then cut out and pasted on to the velvet, where it is kept under pressure until it is dry. In either case the edges have eventually to be worked over.

This habit of working on linen or canvas and applying the embroidery ready worked on to the richer stuff, though early used on occasion, does not seem to have been common until a period when manufacture generally usurped the place of art. The work in Illustration 87 was done directly on to the silk. In the latter half of the 18th century there was a regular trade in embroidery ready to sew on, by which means purveyors could turn out in a day or two what would have taken months to embroider.

Even if it had been the invariable mediaeval practice to work sprays or what not upon canvas and apply them bodily to the velvet, that would not make it the more workmanlike or straightforward way of working. If needle stitches are the ostensible means of getting an effect upon a stuff, it seems only right they should be stitched upon that stuff. To work the details apart and then clap them on to it, stands to embroidery very much in the relation of hedge-carpentering to joinery. Nor is it usually happy in result. Occasionally, as in the case of Miss C. P. Shrewsbury's vine-leaf pattern (Illustration 88), it disarms criticism. More often it looks stuck-on. A way of avoiding that look is to add judicious after-stitching on the stuff itself; and this must not be confined to the sewing on or outlining merely, but allowed to wander playfully over the field, so as to draw your eye away from the margin of the applied patch, and lead you to infer that, some of the needlework being obviously done on the velvet, all of it is. But to disguise in this way the line of demarcation, even if you succeed in doing it, is at best the art of prevarication.



No doubt it is difficult to work upon velvet. The stuff is not very sympathetic, and the stitching has a way of sinking into the pile, and being, as it were, drowned in it. But the trailing spirals of split-stitch which play about the applied spots in many a mediaeval altar cloth hold their own quite well enough to show that silk can be worked straight on to the velvet.

That gold may be equally well worked straight on to velvet may be seen in any Indian saddle cloth. Heavy work of this kind may be rather man's work than woman's; but that is not the point. The question is, how to get the best results; and the answer is, by working on the stuff.

It may be argued that in this way you cannot get very high relief; but the occasions for high relief are, at the best, rare. If you want actual modelling, as in the Spanish work referred to in a previous chapter, that must, of course, be worked separately, built up, as it were, upon the canvas and worked over. And there is no reason why it should not, for in no case does it appear to be stitching. In fact, it aims deliberately at the effect of chased and beaten metal.



Heavy applique of any kind affects, of course, not only the thickness but the flexibility of the material thus enriched—an important consideration if it is meant to hang in folds.



A PLEA FOR SIMPLICITY.

The simplest patterns are by no means the least beautiful. It is too much the fashion to underrate the artistic value of the less pretentious forms of needlework, and especially of flat ornament, which has, nevertheless, its own very important place in decoration. As for geometric pattern, that is quite beneath consideration—it is so mechanical! Mechanical is a word as easily spoken as another; but if needlework is mechanical, that is more often the fault of the needlewoman than of the mechanism she employs. The Orientals, who indulged so freely in geometric device, were the least mechanical of workers. It is our rigid way of working it which robs geometric ornament of its charm. The needleworker has less than ever occasion to be afraid of geometric pattern; for it is peculiarly difficult to get in it that appearance of rule-and-compass-work which makes ornament so dull.

The one real objection to geometric pattern is that it is nowadays so cheaply and so mechanically got by weaving that, however freely it may be rendered, there is a danger of its suggesting mechanical production, which embroidery emphatically ought not to do. There is a similar objection nowadays to some stitches, such, for example, as chain-stitch and back-stitch, which suggest the sewing-machine.

Embroidery does not to-day take quite the place it once did. It was used, for example, by the early Coptic Christians to supplement tapestry. That is to say, what they could not weave they stitched; it was only to get more delicate detail than their tapestry loom would allow, that they had recourse to the needle. Needlework was, in fact, an adjunct to weaving. Later, in mediaeval times, the Germans of Cologne, for their church vestments and the like, wove what they could, and enriched their woven figures with embroidery.

Again, a great deal of Oriental embroidery, and of peasant work everywhere, is merely the result of circumstances. Where money is scarce and time is of no account, it answers a woman's purpose to do for herself with her needle what might in some respects be even better done on the loom. Her preference for handwork is not that it has artistic possibilities, but that it costs her less. She would in many cases prefer the more mechanically produced fabric, if she could get it at the same price. We do not find that Orientals reject the productions of the power-loom—which they would do if they had the artistic instincts with which we credit them.



It results from our conditions of to-day that there are some kinds of needlework we admire, which yet are not worth our doing, such, for example, as the all-over work, which does not amount to more than simple diaper, and which really is not so much embroidering on a textile as converting it into one of another kind. Glorified instances of this kind of work occur in the shawl work of Cashmere, and in those beautiful bits of Persian stitching which remind one of carpet-work in miniature, if they are not in fact related to carpet-weaving.

Embroidery was at one time the readiest, and practically the only, means of getting enrichment of certain kinds. To-day we get machine embroidery. As machinery is perfected, and learns to do what formerly could be done only by the needle, hand-workers get pushed aside and fall out of work. Their chance is, in keeping always in advance of the machine. There is this hope for them, that the monotony of machine-made things produces in the end a reaction in favour of handwork—provided always it gives us something which manufacture cannot. Possibly also there is scope for amateurs and home-artists in that combination of embroidery and hand-weaving with which the power-loom, though it has superseded it, does not enter into competition.



It is not so much for geometric ornament as for simple pattern that I here make my plea, for that reticent work of which so much was at one time done in this country—mere back-stitching, for example, or what looks like it, in yellow silk upon white linen; or the modest diaper, archaic, if you like, but inevitably characteristic, in which the naivete of the sampler seems always to linger; or again, the admirably simple work in Illustration 89. This last does not show so delicately in the photographic reproduction as it should, because, being in grey and yellow on white linen, the relative value of the two shades of colour is lost in the process. In the original the broader yellow bands are much more in tone with the ground, and do not assert themselves so much. Such as it is, only an artist could have designed that border-work, and any neat-handed woman could have embroidered it.

Think again of the delicate work in white on white, too familiar to need illustration, which makes no loud claim to be art, but is content to be beautiful! Is that to be a thing altogether of the past now that we have Art Needlework? Art needlework! It has helped put an end to the patience of the modern worker, and to inspire her too often with ambitions quite beyond her powers of fulfilment.

What one misses in the work of the present day is that reticent and unpretending stitchery, which, thinking to be no more than a labour of loving patience, is really a work of art, better deserving the title than a flaunting floral quilt which goes by the name of "art needlework"—designed apparently to worry the eye by day and to give bad dreams by night to whoever may have the misfortune to sleep under it. Is anyone nowadays modest enough to do work such as the couching in outline in Illustration 90? Yet what distinction there is about it!



EMBROIDERY DESIGN.

Perfect art results only when designer and worker are entirely in sympathy, when the designer knows quite what the worker can do with her materials, and when the worker not only understands what the designer meant, but feels with him. And it is the test of a practical designer that he not only knows the conditions under which his design is to be carried out, but is ready to submit to them.

The distinction here made between designer and embroiderer is not casual, but afore-thought, notwithstanding the division of labour it implies. Enthusiasm has a habit of outrunning reason. Because in some branches of industry subdivision of labour has been carried to absurd excess, it is the fashion to demand in all branches of it the autograph work of one person, which is no less absurd. To try and link together faculties which Nature has for the most part put asunder, is futile.

That designer and worker should be one and the same person is an ideal, but one only very occasionally fulfilled. When that happens (Illustrations 61 and 88) it is well. But the attempt to realise it commonly works out in one of two ways: either a good design is spoilt in the working for want of executive skill on the part of the designer, or good workmanship is spent on poor design, as good, perhaps, as one has any right to expect of a skilled needleworker.

The fact is, you can only make out all the world to be designers by reducing design to what all the world can do. And that is not much. There is a point of view from which it does not amount to design at all.

The study of design forms part of the education of an embroidress, not so much that she may design what she works, but that she may know in the first place what good design is, and, in the second, be equal to the ever-recurring occasion when a design has to be modified or adapted. If, in thus manipulating design not hers, she should discover a faculty of invention, she will want no telling to exercise it. A designer wants no encouragement to design—she designs.

There would be no occasion to insist upon this, were it not for the prevalence at the present moment of the idea that a worker, in whatever art or handicraft, is in artistic duty bound to design whatever she puts hand to do. That is a theory as false as it is unkind; let no embroidress be discouraged by it. Let her, unless she is inwardly impelled to invent, remain content to do good needlework. That is her art. Her business as an artist is to make beautiful things. Co-operation in the making of them is no crime.

And what, then, about originality? Originality is a gift beyond price. But it is not a thing which even the designer should struggle after. It comes, if it is there. There is a revengeful consolation for the pain we suffer from design about us writhing to be up-to-date, in the thought that its contortions tell what pain it cost to do. The birth of beauty is a less agonising travail; and the thing to seek is beauty, not novelty. Whoever planned the lines of the border in Illustration 91, or treated the leafage in Illustration 92, was not trying to be original, but determined to do his best. Artists and workers of individuality and character are themselves, without being so much as aware that originality has gone out of them.



To assume, then, that every needlewoman is, or can ever be, competent to design what she embroiders, is to make very small account of design. How is it possible to take design seriously and yet think it is to be mastered without years of patient study, which few workwomen can or will devote to it? Any cultivated woman may for herself invent (if it is to be called invention) something better worth working than is to be bought ready to work. And that may do for many purposes, so long as it does not claim to be more than it is; but in the case of really important work, to be executed at considerable cost not only of material, but of patient labour, surely it is worth giving serious thought to its design. The scant consideration commonly given to it shows how little the worker is in earnest. Or has she thought? And is she persuaded that her artless spray of flowers, or the ironed-off pattern she has bought, is all that art could be? It would be rude to tell her she was wasting silk! How should she know?

The only way of knowing is to study, to look at good work, old work by preference; it is worth no one's while to praise that unduly. And if in all that is now so readily accessible she finds nothing to admire, nothing which appeals to her, nothing which inspires her, then her case is hopeless. If, on the other hand, she finds only so much as one style of work sympathetic to her, studies that, lets its spirit sink into her, tries to do something worthy of it, then she is on the right road. Measure yourself with the best, not with the common run of work; and if that should put you out of conceit with your own work, no great harm is done; sooner or later you have got to come to a modest opinion of yourself, if ever you are to do even moderate things.



But the "best" above referred to does not necessarily mean the most masterly. The best of a simple kind is not calculated to discourage anyone—rather, it looks as if it must be easy to do that; and in trying to do it you learn how much goes to the doing it. Good design need not be of any great importance or pretensions. It may be quite simple, if only it is right; if the lines are true, the colour harmonious; if it is adapted to its place, to its use and purpose, to execution not only with the needle but in the particular kind of needlework to be employed.

There has of late years been something of a revival of needlework design in schools of art, and some very promising and even most accomplished work has been done; but in many instances, as it seems to me, it is rather design which has been translated into needlework, than design clearly made for execution with the needle. A really appropriate and practical design for embroidery should be schemed not merely with a view to its execution with the needle, but with a view to its execution in a particular stitch or stitches—and possibly by a particular embroidress. To be safe in designing work so minute as that on Illustration 93, one must be sure of the needlewoman who is to execute it.



My reference to old work must not be taken to imply that design should be in imitation of what has been done, or that it should follow on those lines. Design was once upon a time traditional; but the chain of tradition has snapped, and now conscious design must be eclectic—that is to say, one must study old work to see what has been done, and how it has been done, and then do one's own in one's own way. It is at least as foolish to break quite away from what has been done as to tether yourself to it. And in what has been done you will see, not only what is worth doing, but what is not. That, each must judge for herself. For my part, it seems to me the thing best worth doing is ornament. Any way, this much is certain (and you have only to go to a museum to prove it), that there is no need for needleworkers, unless their instinct draws them that way, to take to needle painting, to pictures in silk, or even to flower stitching.

The limitations of embroidery are not so rigidly marked as the boundaries of many another craft. There is little technical difficulty in representing flowers, for example, very naturally—too naturally for any dignified decorative purpose. Embroiderer or embroidery designer will, as a matter of fact, be constantly inspired by flower forms, and silk gives the pure colour of their petals as nearly as may be. But, though the pattern be a veritable flower garden, the embroidress will not forget, to use the happy phrase of William Morris, that she is gardening with silks and gold threads.

Let the needleworker study the work of the needle in preference to that of the brush; let her aim at what stuff and threads will give her, and give more readily than would something else. Let her work according to the needle: take that for her guide, not be misled by what some other tool can do better; do what the needle can do best, and be content with that. That is the way to Art in Needlework, and the surest way.



EMBROIDERY MATERIALS.

Embroidery is not among the things which have to be done, and must be done, therefore, as best one can do them. It is in the nature of a superfluity: the excuse for it is that it is beautiful. It is not worth doing unless it is done well, and in material worth the work done on it. If you are going to spend the time you must spend to do good work, it is worth while using good stuff, foolish to use anything else. The stuff need not be costly, but it should be the best of its kind; and it should be chosen with reference to the work to be done on it, and vice versa. A mean ground-stuff suggests, if it does not necessitate, its being embroidered all over, ground-work as well as pattern; a worthier one, that it should not be hidden altogether from view; a really beautiful one, that enough of it should be left bare of ornament that its quality may be appreciated.

[Sidenote: STUFFS.]

It goes without saying, that for big, bold stitching a proportionately coarse ground-stuff should be used, and for delicate work, one of finer texture; whether it be linen, woollen cloth, or silk, your purpose will determine.

Linen is a worthy ground-stuff, which may be worked on with flax thread, crewel, or silk, but they should not be mixed. Cotton is hardly worth embroidering. Of woollen stuffs, good plain cloth is an excellent ground for work in wool or silk, but it is not pleasant to the touch in working. Serge, if not too loose, may serve for curtains and the like, but it is not so well worth working upon. Felt is beneath contempt.

The nobler the material, the more essential it is that it should be of the best. Poor satin is not "good enough to work on;" it looks poorer than ever when it is embroidered.

Satin should be stretched upon the frame the way of the stuff, and it should not be forgotten that it has a right and a wrong way up. If it is backed, the linen should be fine and smooth: on a coarse backing, the satin gets quickly worn away, as you may see in many a piece of old work that has gone ragged.

"Roman satin" and what is called "satin de luxe" (perhaps because it is not so luxurious as it pretends to be) are effective ground-stuffs easy to work upon; but there is an odour of pretence about satin-faced cotton.

A corded silk is not good to embroider; the work on it looks hard; but a close twill answers very well. Silk damask makes an admirable ground beautifully broken in colour, if only it is simple and broad enough in pattern. Generally speaking, you can hardly choose a design too big and flat; but something depends upon the work to be done on it. In any case, the pattern of the damask ought not to assert itself, and if you can't make out its details, so much the better.

Brocade asserts itself too much to form a good background. There is a practice of embroidering the outlines, or certain details only, of damask and brocade patterns. That is a fair way of further enriching a rich stuff; but it is embroidery merely in the sense that it is literally embroidered: the needlework is only supplementary to weaving.

Tussah silk of the finer sort is easy to work in the hand. The thinner and looser quality needs to be worked in a frame, and with smooth silk not tightly twisted.

[Sidenote: THREAD.]

With regard to the thread to work with: The coarser kinds of flax are best waxed before using. The crewel to be preferred is that not too tightly twisted. Filoselle is well adapted to couching, and may be laid double (24 threads). French floss is smooth, and does well for laid work; for fine work bobbin floss, or what is called "church floss," is better; the slight twist in filo-floss is against it; very thick floss may be used for French knots.

For couching gold, a very fine twisted silk does well. Purse silk, thick and twisted, lends itself perfectly to basket work. Working in coloured silks, one should take advantage of the quality of pure transparent colour which silk takes in the dyeing. The palette of the embroiderer in silk is superlatively rich.

[Sidenote: GOLD.]

The purest gold is generally made on a foundation of red silk. Japanese gold does not tarnish so readily as "passing," which is in some respects superior to it. For stitching through, there is a finer thread, called "tambour." Flat gold wire is known by the name of "plate," and various twisted threads by the name of "purl."

[Sidenote: CHENILLE.]

A not very promising substance to embroider with is chenille. It came into use in the latter half of the 17th century, and was still in fashion in the time of Marie Antoinette. The use of it is shown in Illustration 75, where the darker touches of the roses are worked in it. Chenille seems to have been used instead of smooth silk, much as in certain old-fashioned water-colour paintings gum was used with the paint, or over it, to deepen the shadows. The material is used again in the wreath on Illustration 76. It is worked there in chain-stitch with the tambour needle: it may also be worked in satin-stitch; but the more obvious way of using it is to couch it, cord by cord, with fine silk thread. There is this against chenille, that its texture is not sympathetic to the touch, and that there is a stuffy look about it always. Nor does it seem ever quite to belong to the smooth satin ground on which it is worked.

[Sidenote: RIBBON.]

[Sidenote: SHADED SILK.]

There is less objection to embroidery in ribbon, which also had its day in the 18th century. It was very much the fashion for court dresses under Louis Seize—"Broderie de faveur," as it was called, whence our "lady's favour"—faveur being a narrow ribbon. Some beautiful work of its kind was done in ribbon, sometimes shaded. Shaded silk, by the way, may be used to artistic purpose. There is, for example, in the treasury of Seville Cathedral a piece of work on velvet, 13th century, it is said, rather Persian in character, in which the forms of certain nondescript animals are at first sight puzzlingly prismatic in colour. They turn out to be roughly worked in short stitches of parti-coloured silk thread. The result is not altogether beautiful, but it is extremely suggestive.

[Sidenote: RIBBON.]

The effect of ribbon work is happiest when it is not sewn through the stuff after the manner of satin stitch, but lies on the surface of the satin ground, and is only just caught down at the ends of the loops which go to make leaves and petals. The twist of the ribbon where it turns gives interest to the surface of the embroidery, which is always more or less in relief upon the stuff, easy to crush, and of limited use therefore.



An effect of ribbon work, but of a harder kind, was produced by onlaying narrow strips of card or parchment upon a silken ground, twisted about after the fashion of ribbon. These, having been stitched in place, were worked over in satin-stitch. The work has the merit of looking just like what it is. But neither it nor ribbon embroidery is of any very serious account.

Passing reference has been made to other materials to embroider with than thread. Gold wire, for example, and spangles, coral and pearls, which have been used with admirable discretion, as well as to vulgar purpose. Jewels also were lavished upon the embroidery of bishops' mitres, gloves and other significant apparel, and in default of real stones, imitations in glass, and eventually beads (or pearls) of glass, in which we have possibly the origin of knots. Bead embroidery is at least as old as ancient Egypt. Even atoms of looking-glass, sewn round with silk, have been used to really beautiful effect (barbaric though it may be) in Indian work. The question almost occurs: with what can one not embroider? In Madras they produce most brilliant embroidery upon muslin with the cases of beetles' wings. In the Mauritius they use fish-scales; in North America, porcupine quills; and everywhere savage tribes use seeds, shells, feathers, and the teeth and claws of animals.

To return to more civilised work, there is embroidery in gold and silver wire, allied to the art of the goldsmith, and on leather (Illustration 94), allied to the art of the saddler. It would be difficult to set any limit to the directions in which embroidery may branch out, impossible to describe them all. Happily, it is not necessary. A skilled worker adapts herself to new conditions, and the conditions themselves dictate the necessary modification of the familiar way.



A WORD TO THE WORKER.

A good workwoman will not encumber herself with too many tools; but she will not shirk the expense of necessary implements, the simplest by preference, and the best that are made.

[Sidenote: NEEDLES.]

Embroidery needles should have large eyes; the silk is not rubbed in threading them, and they make way for the thread to pass smoothly through the stuff. For working in twisted silk, the eye should be roundish; for flat silk, long; for surface stitching or interlacing, a blunt "tapestry needle" is best; for carrying cord or gold thread through the stuff, a "rug needle."

[Sidenote: THIMBLE.]

For a thimble, choose an old one that has been worn quite smooth.

[Sidenote: SCISSORS.]

For scissors, be sure and have a strong, short, sharp and pointed pair—the surgical instrument, not the fancy article. Nail scissors would not be amiss but for the roughness of the file on the blades.

[Sidenote: PINS.]

For pins, use always steel ones; and for tacks, those which have been tinned; or they will leave their mark behind them.

[Sidenote: FRAMES.]

For a frame, get the best you can afford; a cheap one is no economy; but a stand for it is not always necessary. It should be rather wider than might seem necessary, as the work should never extend to the full width of the webbing. A tambour frame is also useful, though you have no intention of doing tambour work.

[Sidenote: TO STRETCH SILK.]

In stretching silk (not backed with linen) upon a frame, some preliminary care is necessary. The stuff should first be bordered with strips of linen or strong tape, and into the two sides of this border which are to be laced up a stout string should be tacked, to prevent it from giving when the work is drawn tight.

[Sidenote: FRAMING.]

The way to put embroidery material (thus bordered or not) into a frame is: first to sew it to the webbing (top and bottom), then to put the laths or screws into the bars, tightening them evenly, and lastly to lace it to the sides with fine string and a packing needle.

[Sidenote: TRANSFERRING.]

The ordinary ways of transferring a design to embroidery material are well known: the outline may be traced down with a point over transfer paper; it may be pricked upon paper and pounced upon the stuff in chalk or charcoal, and then traced in with a brush or pen; or it (still the outline only) may be stencilled. In any case, the outline marked upon the stuff should be well within what is to be the actual outline of the embroidery when worked. Another way, more peculiarly adapted to needlework, is to trace the outline in ink upon fine tarlatan (leno muslin will do for very coarse work), and, having laid this down upon the stuff, to go over the lines again with a ruling pen and Indian ink or colour. On a light stuff it is possible to use, instead of a pen, a hard pencil. On a dark material one must use Chinese white, to which it is well to add, not only a little gum (arabic), but a trace of ox-gall, to make it work easily. One gets by this method naturally rather a rotten line upon the ground-stuff, but it is enough for all practical purposes.

[Sidenote: KEEPING CLEAN.]

Delicate work is easily rubbed and soiled in the working. It is only reasonable precaution to protect it by a veil or covering of thin, soft, white glazed lining, tacked round the edges on to the stuff. On this you mark the four lines inclosing the actual embroidery, and, cutting through three of them, you have a flap of lining, which you raise and turn back when you are at work. If the work is very delicate, you may make instead of one flap a succession of little ones; but you see then only a portion of your work at a time, and cannot so well judge its effect.

[Sidenote: STARTING AND FINISHING.]

In starting work, do not begin by making a knot in your thread; run a few stitches (presently to be worked over) on the right side of the stuff. In finishing, you run them at the back of the stuff; for greater security still, one may end with a buttonhole-stitch.

[Sidenote: PUCKERING.]

There is less danger of puckering the stuff if you hold it over two fingers (at least), keeping it taut and the thread loose.

Working without a frame, it often comes handiest to hold the stuff askew, and there is a natural inclination to pull it in that direction. This temptation must be resisted, or puckering is sure to result.

[Sidenote: DOUBLE THREAD.]

In working with double silk or wool, it is better not to double back a single thread, but to pass two separate threads through the eye of the needle. The four threads (where these are turned back near the eye) make way through the stuff for the double thread, which passes easily; moreover, the thread by this means is not pulled too tight, and the effect is richer.

The stitch wants always adaptation to the work it has to do. In working a curved line, for example, say in herring-bone-stitch, one is bound always to take up a larger piece of stuff on its outside than on its inner edge.

When a thread runs short, it is better not to go on working with it, but to take another; and in finishing off, remember to run the thread in the direction opposite to that from which you are going to run the new one. In starting the new stitch, you naturally bring your needle out as if it were a continuation of that last made.

[Sidenote: UNDOING.]

If your work is faulty, cut it out and do it again. Unpicking is not so satisfactory: it loosens the stuff to drag the thread back through it, and the thread saved is of no further use. Beginners find it hard to undo work once done; but a really good needlewoman never hesitates about it—her one thought is to get the thing right. Don't break your thread ever: that pulls it out of condition: cut it always.

In working, it is well to keep strictly to the stitch you have chosen, but not to the point of bigotry. One may finish off darning, for example, at the edges with a satin stitch. The thing to avoid is fudging. Moreover, stitches should be laid right at once; there should be no boggling and botching, no working-over with stitches to make good—that is not playing fair.

[Sidenote: SMOOTHING.]

When the needlework is done, do not finish it with a flat iron. That finishes it in more senses than one. But suppose it is puckered? In that case, stretch it and damp it. To do this, first tack on to it (as explained on page 251) a frame of strong tape. Then, on a drawing-board or other even wooden surface, lay a piece of clean calico, and on that, face downwards, the embroidery, and, slightly stretching it, nail it down by the tape with tin-tacks rather close together. If now you lay upon it a damp cloth, the embroidery will absorb the moisture from it, and when that is removed, should dry as flat as it is possible to get it.

A rather more daring plan is to damp the back of the stuff with a wet sponge. The work, instead of being nailed on to a board, may just as well be laced to a frame by the tape. In the case of raised embroidery there must be between it and the wood, not a cloth merely, but a layer of wadding.

The damping above described may take the form of a thin paste or stiffening, but upon silk or other such material this wants tenderly doing.

One last word as to thoroughness in needlework. Those who have really not time to do much, should be satisfied with simple work. The desire to make a great show with little work is a snare. Ladies make protest always, "There is too much work in that." Well, if they are not prepared to work, they may as well give themselves up to their play. There was no labour shirked in the old work illustrated in these pages; and nothing much worth doing was ever done without work, hard work, and plenty of it. Should that thought frighten folk away, they may as well be scared off at once. Art can do very well without them.



INDEX.

ADAPTATION of stitch, 103, 188, 253

ANTIQUE stitch, 66 (See also Oriental-stitch)

APPLIQUE, 140, 144 et seq., 220, 222, 224

ARAB work, 152

ARTLESS art, 37, 236

ATTACHMENT of cord, 124

BACKSTITCH, 30, 37, 41, 53, 83, 86, 172, 226, 230

BASKET patterns, 134

BEADS, 248

BEGINNING & FINISHING, 252

BLANKET-STITCH, 56

BRAID-STITCH, 42, 43

BROAD surfaces (covering), 178

BROCADE, 244

BULLION, 165

BULLION-STITCH, 75, 76, 162, 165

BUTTONHOLE-STITCH, 8, 55 et seq., 69, 122, 145, 158, 178, 182

BUTTONHOLING (lace), 84, 86

BYZANTINE embroidery, 12, 24

CABLE-CHAIN, 42

CANVAS, 7, 25

CANVAS stitches, 12 et seq.

CANVAS-STITCH embroidery, 22

CARD underlay, 162, 246

CASHMERE embroidery, 228

CASHMERE-STITCH, 18

CHAIN-STITCH, 38 et seq., 61, 83, 129, 145, 156, 158, 178, 182, 202, 226, 245

CHENILLE, 245

CHINESE embroidery, 78, 96, 129, 136, 140, 152

CHURCH work, 41, 136, 148, 166, 216 et seq.

CLASSIFICATION of stitches, 9, 175 et seq.

CLOTH, 125, 126, 159, 243

COLOUR, 110, 208

COLOUR gradation, 98, 114, 118

COLOUR and outline, 146, 185

COMBINATION of stitches, 182

COPTIC embroidery, 12, 226

" tapestry, 2

CORAL, 166, 248

CORD, 122

" (couched), 128, 144, 178, 182

" (attachment of), 124

COTTON, 243

COUCHED cord, 128, 144, 178, 182

" gold, 131 et seq., 182

" outline, 146

COUCHING, 22, 114, 120, 121, 122 et seq., 244

" (reverse), 130

COUNTERCHANGE, 154

CRETAN embroidery, 12

CRETAN-STITCH, 61 (See also Ladder-stitch)

CREWEL, 244

CREWEL-STITCH, 26 et seq., 83, 86, 103, 105, 178

" (surface), 86

CREWEL work, 26, 36, 37

CROSS-STITCH, 12, 14, 16

CROSSED buttonhole-stitch, 56

CUSHION-STITCH, 20, 21

CUT-WORK, 156

DAMASK, 243, 244

DAMPING, 254, 255

DARNING, 8, 22, 83, 90, 106 et seq., 178, 179

" (Japanese), 86

" (surface), 84

DESIGN, 150, 219, 233 et seq.

" traditional, 238, 240

DESIGN and stitch, 10, 238

DESIGNER and embroiderer, 232, 233

DIAPERS, 87, 88, 108, 132, 134, 210

DIRECTION of stitch, 92, 95, 108, 114, 136, 190, 208 et seq.

DOUBLE darning, 106

" thread, 253

DOVETAIL-STITCH, 103, 104 (See also Embroidery and Plumage Stitches)

DRAWING with the needle, 192, 194, 196, 199, 211

DRAWN work, 2, 4

EASTERN embroidery. (See Oriental)

EFFECT and stitch, 36, 78

EIGHTEENTH century embroidery, 220, 246

EMBROIDERY and painting, 201, 202

EMBROIDERY-STITCH, 103 (See also Plumage-stitch)

ENGLISH embroidery, 34, 36, 169

FEATHER-STITCH, 62 et seq., 83, 100, 178

FELT, 243

FIFTEENTH century embroidery, 24, 164

FIGURE work, 116, 169, 190, 198 et seq.

FILLING-IN patterns, 24

FILO-FLOSS, 164, 244

FILOSELLE, 124, 144, 244

FISHBONE, 21, 47, 51

FLAX thread, 164, 244

FLEMISH embroidery, 142, 200

FLESH, 204, 206

FLORENTINE-STITCH, 18, 21 (See also Cushion stitch)

FLOSS, 95, 114, 116, 118, 120, 244

FORM and stitch, 44, 47, 100, 118, 176, 211, 253

FRAMING work, 251

FRENCH embroidery, 88, 245

" floss, 244

" knots, 77, 129, 150, 178, 244

GEOMETRIC pattern, 225

GERMAN embroidery, 110, 125, 126, 156, 185, 226

GERMAN knot-stitch, 72

GOBELIN-STITCH, 18

GOLD, 210, 222, 245

" (couched), 131 et seq., 182

" (raised), 134, 136, 165

GOLD thread, 131, 245

" tinted by couching stitches, 142

" wire, 169, 248

HALF-CROSS-STITCH, 20

HERALDIC embroidery, 156

HERRINGBONE-STITCH, 8, 22, 47 et seq., 83, 178, 182

HILDESHEIM cope (the), 126

HUNGARIAN embroidery, 2

" stitch, 18

INDIAN embroidery, 41, 46, 61, 95, 98, 154, 169, 222, 248

INDIAN herring-bone, 48

INLAY, 153

INTERLACING stitches, 83

ITALIAN embroidery, 22, 24, 37, 46, 138

ITALIAN embroidery (Renaissance), 22, 41, 120, 142, 154, 199

JAPANESE darning, 86, 87

" embroidery, 80

" gold, 245

JEWELS, 165, 248

KNOT stitches, 72 et seq., 182

LACE, 1, 2

LACE stitches, 84 et seq.

LADDER-STITCH, 59, 61, 182

LAID-WORK, 112 et seq., 162, 178

LEATHER, 248

LEATHER on velvet, 150

LENGTH of stitch, 96, 100

LIMITATIONS of embroidery, 240

LINE work, 176, 178

LINEN, 164, 243

" (embroidery on), 24

LONG-AND-SHORT-STITCH, 36, 98, 100, 178, 190, 192

MAGIC-STITCH, 41

MATERIAL (influence of on stitch), 12, 13, 16, 18, 24, 88, 91

MATERIALS, 242 et seq.

MECHANICAL embroidery, 225

MEDIAEVAL work, 92, 136, 140, 190

MILANESE-STITCH, 18

MODELLING, 222

MODEST work, 230, 231

MOORISH-STITCH, 18, 21

MOROCCO embroidery, 152

NEEDLE (tambour), 38, 245

NEEDLE pictures, 201

NEEDLES, 250

NET passing, 86

OLD ENGLISH KNOT-STITCH, 75

OPUS Anglicanum, 9

ORIENTAL embroidery, 2, 22, 61, 92, 112, 136, 140, 153, 226

" stitch, 66 et seq., 83, 178, 182

ORIGINALITY, 234

OUTLINE, 22, 77, 108, 146, 158, 178, 184, 185 et seq.

" (couched), 126, 128, 146

" (double), 146, 185, 186

" (stepped), 16, 24

" (voided), 96, 187

OUTLINE embroidery, 138

" stitch, 29, 30, 32, 86

PADDING, 159, 172

PAINTING, 201, 202

PARCHMENT, 160, 168, 246

PARISIAN-STITCH, 18

PATCHWORK, 156

PEARLS, 165, 166, 248

PEASANT work, 12, 13, 226

PERSIAN embroidery, 7, 24, 41, 174, 228

PICTORIAL effect, 198, 199, 201

PICTURES (tent-stitch), 14, 20

PIERCE, 132

PINS, 146, 250

PLAIT-STITCH, 21

PLATE, 245

PLUMAGE-STITCH, 62, 100, 103, 178, 179, 192, 212

PRECIOUSNESS, 198

PURL, 245

PURSE silk, 116, 162

QUILTING, 172 et seq.

RAISED gold, 134, 136, 165 et seq.

" work, 134, 136, 159 et seq.

RELIEF, 159 et seq., 166, 168, 169, 172, 222

RENAISSANCE embroidery, 41, 92, 142, 154, 166

RENEWING ground, 126

REVERSE-couching, 130

RIBBON, 150, 246

RIBBON work, 246

ROLL-STITCH, 75 (See also Bullion-stitch)

ROMAN satin, 243

ROPE-STITCH, 71 et seq., 178

RUNNING, 83, 106, 179

SATIN, 243

" "de luxe", 243

" on velvet, 150

SATIN-STITCH, 24, 91 et seq., 103, 112, 128, 158, 160, 162, 175, 178, 182, 192, 206, 212, 245

SATIN-STITCH (surface), 98, 282

SATIN-STITCH in the making, 91

SCISSORS, 250

SERGE, 243

SEVENTEENTH century embroidery, 14, 166

SHADED silk, 246

SHADING, 34, 176, 188 et seq.

SILK, 146, 243

" (tussah), 244

" (twisted), 95, 124, 125

" on silk, 150

SILKS, 244

SILVER, 135, 138, 166

SIMPLICITY, 180, 236, 238

" (a plea for), 225 et seq.

SIXTEENTH century embroidery, 22, 120, 125, 142, 185, 199

SOLID chain-stitch, 43, 44

" crewel-stitch, 32, 34

SOUDANESE embroidery, 112

SPANGLES, 169, 248

SPANISH embroidery, 129, 142, 154, 166, 185

SPANISH-STITCH, 18, 22 (See also Plait-stitch)

SPLIT-STITCH, 38, 100, 105, 114, 179, 190, 196, 222

SPOT-STITCH, 30

STEM-STITCH, 32

STEMS, 95

STEPPED outline, 16, 24

STILETTO, 174

STITCH (definition of), 11

" adaptation, 103, 188, 253

" and effect, 36, 78

" and form, 44, 47, 100, 118, 176, 211, 253

" and stuff, 12, 13, 16, 18, 24, 88, 91

" groups, 9, 175 et seq.

" names, 8, 9

" patterns, 87, 88

" and design, 10, 238

STITCHES, 7

STITCHING over stitching, 215

STRETCHING work, 251, 254

STRING, 159, 160, 162

STROKE-STITCH, 16

STUFFS, 242

SURFACE crewel-stitch, 86

" darning, 84

" satin-stitch, 98, 182

" stitches, 84

SYON COPE (the), 7, 130, 210

TAILORS' buttonhole, 56

TAMBOUR, 245

" frame, 44

" needle, 38, 245

" stitch, 38

" work, 44, 194

TAPESTRY, 1, 2, 4, 143, 220

TAPESTRY-STITCH, 53

TENDRILS, 130

TENT-STITCH, 14, 18

THIMBLE, 250

THREAD, 244

TRADITIONAL design, 238, 240

TRANSFERRING design, 251

TURKISH embroidery, 22

TUSSAH silk, 244

TWISTED silk, 95, 124, 125

UNDERLAY, 159, 160, 165

UNPICKING, 253

VANDYKE chain, 42

VARIETY of method, 148, 158

" of stitch, 180 et seq.

VELVET, 150, 222

VENETIAN embroidery, 138

VOIDING, 96, 187

WEAVING, 2

WHITE on white, 162, 230

WOOL. (See Crewel)

WOOLLEN stuffs, 243

THE END.

BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.



A LIST OF STANDARD BOOKS ON ORNAMENT & DECORATION, INCLUDING FURNITURE, WOOD-CARVING, METAL WORK, &c., PUBLISHED BY B. T. BATSFORD, 94, HIGH HOLBORN, LONDON, W.C.

WINDOWS.—A BOOK ABOUT STAINED AND PAINTED GLASS. By LEWIS F. DAY. Containing 410 pages, including 50 full-page Plates, and upwards of 200 Illustrations in the text, all of Old Examples. Large 8vo, cloth gilt. Price 21s. net.

"Contains a more complete popular account—technical and historical—of stained and painted glass than has previously appeared in this country."—The Times.

"The book is a masterpiece in its way ... amply illustrated and carefully printed; it will long remain an authority on its subject."—The Art Journal.

"All for whom the subject of stained glass possesses an interest and a charm, will peruse these pages with pleasure and profit."—The Morning Post.

"Mr. Day has done a worthy piece of work in more than his usual admirable manner ... the illustrations are all good and some the best black-and-white drawings of stained glass yet produced."—The Studio.

Now Published, the most handy, useful, and comprehensive work on the subject.

ALPHABETS, OLD AND NEW. Containing 150 complete Alphabets, 30 Series of Numerals, Numerous Facsimiles of Ancient Dates. Selected and arranged by LEWIS F. DAY. Preceded by a short account of the Development of the Alphabet. With Modern Examples specially Designed by Walter Crane, Patten Wilson, A. Beresford Pite, the Author, and others. Crown 8vo, art linen. Price 3s. 6d. net.

"Mr. Day's explanation of the growth of form in letters is particularly valuable.... Many excellent alphabets are given in illustration of his remarks."—The Studio.

"Everyone who employs practical lettering will be grateful for 'Alphabets, Old and New.' Mr. Day has written a scholarly and pithy introduction, and contributes some beautiful alphabets of his own design."—The Art Journal.

"A practical resume of all that is to be known on the subject, concisely and clearly stated."—St. James' Gazette.

"It goes without saying that whatever Mr. Batsford publishes and Mr. Day has to do with is presented in a good artistic form, complete, and wherever that is possible, graceful."—The Athenaeum.

ARCHITECTURE AMONG THE POETS. By H. HEATHCOTE STATHAM. With 13 Illustrations. Square 8vo, artistically bound. Price 3s. 6d. net.

"This little work does for architecture in relation to English poetry what Mr. Phil Robinson has done for the birds and beasts. The poet's appreciation of architecture is a delightful subject with which Mr. Statham has become infected, not only illustrating his points with quotations and his judgments with his reasons, but the whole with a series of fanciful or suggestive sketches which add considerably to the attractiveness of the book."—The Magazine of Art.

THE DECORATION OF HOUSES. By EDITH WHARTON and OGDEN CODMAN, Architect. 204 pages of text, with 56 full-page Photographic Plates of Views of Rooms, Doors, Ceilings, Fireplaces, various pieces of Furniture, &c., from the Renaissance period. Large square 8vo, cloth gilt, price 12s. 6d. net.

This volume, written by an American Lady Artist, and an Architect, describes and illustrates in a very interesting way the Decorative treatment of Rooms during the Renaissance period, and deduces principles for the decoration, furnishing, and arrangements of Modern Houses.

"... has illustrations which are beautiful ... because they illustrate the sound and simple principle of decoration which the authors put forward.... The book is one which should be in the library of every man and woman of means, for its advice is characterised by so much common sense as well as by the best of taste."—The Queen.

THE HISTORIC STYLES OF ORNAMENT. Containing 1,500 examples from all countries and all periods, exhibited on 100 Plates, mostly printed in gold and colours. With historical and descriptive text translated from the German of H. DOLMETSCH. Folio, handsomely bound in cloth, gilt, price L1 5s. net.

This work has been designed to serve as a practical guide for the purpose of showing the development of Ornament, and the application of colour to it in various countries through the epochs of history. The work illustrates not only Flat Ornament, but also many Decorative Objects, such as METAL-WORK, POTTERY AND PORCELAIN, LACE, ENAMEL, MOSAIC, ILLUMINATION, STAINED GLASS, JEWELLERY, BOOKBINDING, &c., showing the application of Ornament to Industrial Art.

Just Published.

A MANUAL OF HISTORIC ORNAMENT, being an Account of the Development of Architecture and the Historic Arts, for the use of Students and Craftsmen. By RICHARD GLAZIER, A.R.I.B.A., Headmaster of the Manchester School of Art. Containing 42 Plates and 100 Illustrations in the text. Demy 8vo, cloth. Price 5s.

The object of this book is to furnish students with a concise account of Historic Ornament, in which the rise of each style is noted, and its characteristic features illustrated. It contains upwards of 400 subjects drawn by the author, and includes examples of Architectural Detail and Plastic Ornament, Pottery, Textile Fabrics, Glass, Metal-work, Mosaic, Painted Faience, &c., &c. of various countries.

A MANUAL OF PRACTICAL INSTRUCTION IN THE ART OF BRASS REPOUSSE FOR AMATEURS. By GAWTHORP (Art Metal Worker to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales). Second and enlarged Edition. With 32 Illustrations, many from photographs of executed designs. Crown 8vo, in wrapper. Price 1s. net.

OLD CLOCKS AND WATCHES AND THEIR MAKERS. By F. J. BRITTEN, Secretary of the Horological Institute. Being an Account of the History of Clocks and Watches, their Mechanism and Ornamentation, to which is appended a List of 8,000 Old Makers, with descriptive Notes. Containing over 400 Illustrations, many reproduced from photographs, of choice and curious examples, of Clocks and Watches of the past in England and abroad, including the finely-ornamented Bracket Clocks of the XVIIth Century, with their ingenious mechanism, and the tall and elegant cases of the XVIIIth Century, also a selection of Portraits of the most renowned Masters of the Clockmaker's Art. 512 pages. Demy 8vo, cloth, gilt. Price 10s. net.

KING RENE'S HONEYMOON CABINET. A Monograph. By John P. Seddon, Architect. Illustrated by 10 photographic reproductions of the Cabinet, and the Panels, painted by the late SIR E. BURNE JONES, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Ford Madox Brown. With a chapter on the Hereditary Earls of Anjou, by G. H. BIRCH, F.S.A. Large 8vo, cloth, price 5s. net.

This interesting little work has been issued by the author to make known and commemorate some early designs by the celebrated artists. Very few copies are printed for sale.

A small remainder, just reduced in price.

ANIMALS IN ORNAMENT. By Professor G. STURM. Containing 30 large collotype plates, printed in tint, of designs suitable for Friezes, Panels, Borders, Wall-papers, Carving, and all kinds of Surface Decoration, &c. Large folio in portfolio, price 18s. net (published L1 10s.).

A new and useful series of clever designs, showing how animal forms may be adapted to decorative purposes with good effect.

A HISTORY OF DESIGN IN PAINTED GLASS.—From the Earliest Times to the end of the Seventeenth Century. By N. H. J. WESTLAKE, F.S.A. Containing 467 illustrations with historical text. Four volumes, small folio, cloth, price L5 10s., net L4 8s.

Very few copies remain for sale of this valuable work.

MR. LEWIS F. DAY'S TEXT BOOKS OF ORNAMENTAL DESIGN.

SOME PRINCIPLES OF EVERY-DAY ART.—INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS ON THE ARTS NOT FINE. Forming a Prefatory Volume to the Series of Text Books. Second Edition, revised, containing 70 Illustrations (Third Thousand). Crown 8vo, art linen, price 3s. 6d., net 3s.

"Authoritative as coming from a writer whose mastery of the subjects is not to be disputed, and who is generous in imparting the knowledge he acquired with difficulty. Mr. Day has taken much trouble with the new edition."—Architect.

"A good artist, and a sound thinker, Mr. Day has produced a book of sterling value."—Magazine of Art.

THE ANATOMY OF PATTERN.—Containing: I. Introductory. II. Pattern Dissections. III. Practical Pattern Planning. IV. The "Drop" Pattern. V. Skeleton Plans. VI. Appropriate Pattern. Fourth Edition (Ninth Thousand), revised, with 41 full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo, art linen, price 3s. 6d., net 3s.

"... There are few men who know the science of their profession better or can teach it as well as Mr. Lewis Day; few also who are more gifted as practical decorators; and in anatomising pattern in the way he has done in this manual—a way beautiful as well as useful—he has performed a service not only to the students of his profession, but also to the public."—Academy.

THE PLANNING OF ORNAMENT.—Containing: I. Introductory. II. The Use of the Border. III. Within the Border. IV. Some Alternatives in Design. V. On the Filling of the Circle and other Shapes. VI. Order and Accident. Third Edition (Fifth Thousand), further revised, with 41 full-page Illustrations, many of which have been re-drawn. Crown 8vo, art linen, price 3s. 6d., net 3s.

"Contains many apt and well-drawn illustrations; it is a highly comprehensive, compact, and intelligent treatise on a subject which is more difficult to treat than outsiders are likely to think. It is a capital little book, from which no tyro (it is addressed to improvable minds) can avoid gaining a good deal."—Athenaeum.

THE APPLICATION OF ORNAMENT.—Containing: I. The Rationale of the Conventional. II. What is Implied by Repetition. III. Where to Stop in Ornament. IV. Style and Handicraft. V. The Teaching of the Tool. VI. Some Superstitions. Third Edition (Sixth Thousand), further revised, with 48 full-page Illustrations and 7 Woodcuts in the text. Crown 8vo, art linen, price 3s. 6d., net 3s.

"A most worthy supplement to the former work, and a distinct gain to the art student who has already applied his art knowledge in a practical manner, or who hopes yet to do so."—Science and Art.

ORNAMENTAL DESIGN.—Comprising the above Three Books, "ANATOMY OF PATTERN," "PLANNING OF ORNAMENT," and "APPLICATION OF ORNAMENT," handsomely bound in one volume, cloth gilt, price 10s. 6d., net 8s. 6d.

NATURE IN ORNAMENT.—With 123 full-page Plates and 192 Illustrations in the text. Third Edition (Fifth Thousand). Thick crown 8vo, in handsome cloth binding, richly gilt, price 12s. 6d., net 10s.

CONTENTS: I. Introductory. II. Ornament in Nature. III. Nature in Ornament. IV. The Simplification of Natural Forms. V. The Elaboration of Natural Forms. VI. Consistency in the Modification of Nature. VII. Parallel Renderings. VIII. More Parallels. IX. Tradition in Design. X. Treatment. XI. Animals in Ornament. XII. The Element of the Grotesque. XIII. Still Life in Ornament. XIV. Symbolic Ornament.

"Amongst the best of our few good ornamental designers is Mr. Lewis F. Day, who is the author of several books on ornamental art. 'Nature in Ornament' is the latest of these, and is probably the best. The treatise should be in the hands of every student of ornamental design. It is profusely and admirably illustrated, and well printed."—Magazine of Art.

"A book more beautiful for its illustrations, or one more helpful to Students of Art, can hardly be imagined."—Queen.

A HANDBOOK OF ORNAMENT.—With 300 Plates, containing about 3,000 Illustrations of the Elements and Application of Decoration to Objects. By F. S. MEYER, Professor at the School of Applied Art, Karlsruhe. Third English Edition, revised by HUGH STANNUS, Lecturer on Applied Art at the Royal College of Art, South Kensington. Thick 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, price 12s. 6d., net 10s.

"A Library, a Museum, an Encyclopaedia and an Art School in one. To rival it as a book of reference, one must fill a bookcase. The quality of the drawings is unusually high, the choice of examples is singularly good.... The work is practically an epitome of a hundred Works on Design."—Studio.

"The author's acquaintance with ornament amazes, and his three thousand subjects are gleaned from the finest which the world affords. As a treasury of ornament drawn to scale in all styles, and derived from genuine concrete objects, we have nothing in England which will not appear as poverty-stricken as compared with Professor Meyer's book."—Architect.

"The book is a mine of wealth even to an ordinary reader, while to the Student of Art and Archaeology it is simply indispensable as a reference book. We know of no one work of its kind that approaches it for comprehensiveness and historical accuracy."—Science and Art.

A HANDBOOK OF ART SMITHING.—For the use of Practical Smiths, Designers and others, and in Art and Technical Schools. By F. S. MEYER, Author of "A Handbook of Ornament." Translated from the Second German Edition. With an Introduction by J. STARKIE GARDNER. Containing 214 Illustrations. Demy 8vo, cloth, price 6s., net 5s.

Both the Artistic and Practical Branches of the subject are dealt with, and the Illustrations give selected Examples of Ancient and Modern Ironwork. The Volume thus fills the long-existing want of a Manual on Ornamental Ironwork, and it is hoped will prove of value to all interested in the subject.

"Charmingly produced.... It is really a most excellent manual, crowded with examples of ancient work, for the most part extremely well selected."—The Studio.

"Professor Meyer's work is a useful historical manual on art smithing, based on a scientific classification of the subject, that will be of service to all smiths, designers, and students of technical and art schools. The illustrations are well drawn and numerous."—Building News.

Published with the Sanction of the Science and Art Department.

FRENCH WOOD CARVINGS FROM THE NATIONAL MUSEUMS.—A Series of Examples printed in Collotype from Photographs specially taken from the Carvings direct. Edited by ELEANOR ROWE. Part I.: Late 15th and Early 16th Century Examples; Part II.: 16th Century Work; Part III.: 17th and 18th Centuries. The Three Series Complete, each containing 18 large folio Plates, with descriptive letterpress. Folio, in portfolios, price 12s. each net; or handsomely bound in one volume, L2 5s. net.

"Students of the Art of Wood Carving will find a mine of inexhaustible treasures in this series of illustrations of French Wood Carvings.... Each plate is a work of art in itself; the distribution of light and shade is admirably managed, and the differences in relief are faithfully indicated, while every detail is reproduced with a clearness that will prove invaluable to the student. Sections are given with several of the plates."—The Queen.

"Needs only to be seen to be purchased by all interested in the craft, whether archaeologically or practically."—The Studio.

HINTS ON WOOD CARVING FOR BEGINNERS.—By ELEANOR ROWE. Fourth Edition, revised and enlarged, Illustrated. 8vo, sewed, price 1s. in paper covers, or bound in cloth, price 1s. 6d.

"The most useful and practical small book on wood-carving we know of."—Builder.

"... Is a useful little book, full of sound directions and good suggestions."—Magazine of Art.

HINTS ON CHIP CARVING.—(Class Teaching and other Northern Styles.) By ELEANOR ROWE. 40 Illustrations. 8vo, sewed, price 1s. in paper covers, or in cloth, price 1s. 6d.

"A capital manual of instruction in a craft that ought to be most popular."—Saturday Review.

DETAILS OF GOTHIC WOOD CARVING.—Being a Series of Drawings from original work of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. By FRANKLYN A. CRALLAN. Containing 34 large Photo-lithographic Plates, with introductory and descriptive text. Large 4to, in handsome cloth portfolio, or bound in cloth gilt, price 28s., net 22s.

"The examples are carefully drawn to a large size ... well selected and very well executed."—The Builder.

PROGRESSIVE STUDIES AND DESIGNS FOR WOOD-CARVERS. By Miss E. R. PLOWDEN. With a Preface by Miss ROWE. Consisting of five large folding sheets of Illustrations (drawn full size), of a variety of objects suitable for Wood Carving. With descriptive text. Second Edition, enlarged. 4to, in portfolio. Price 5s. net.

ANCIENT WOOD AND IRONWORK IN CAMBRIDGE.—By W. B. REDFARN, the Letterpress by JOHN WILLIS CLARK. 29 folio Lithographed Plates drawn to a good scale. Cloth gilt, a handsome volume, price 10s. 6d., net 8s. 6d.

This Work, giving an interesting and useful series of Examples, is but little known. Very few copies remain.

HEPPLEWHITE'S CABINET-MAKER AND UPHOLSTERER'S GUIDE; or Repository of Designs for every article of Household Furniture in the newest and most approved taste. A complete facsimile reproduction of this rare work, containing nearly 300 charming Designs on 128 Plates. Small folio, bound in speckled cloth, gilt, old style, price L2 10s. net. (1794.) Original copies when met with fetch from L17 to L18.

"A beautiful replica, which every admirer of the author and period should possess."—Building News.

CHIPPENDALE'S THE GENTLEMAN AND CABINET-MAKER'S DIRECTOR.—A complete facsimile of the 3rd and rarest Edition, containing 200 Plates of Designs of Chairs, Sofas, Beds and Couches, Tables, Library Book Cases, Clock Cases, Stove Grates, &c., &c. Folio, strongly bound in half-cloth, price L3 15s. net. (1762.)

SHERATON'S CABINET-MAKER AND UPHOLSTERER'S DRAWING-BOOK.—A complete Facsimile Reproduction of the scarce Third Edition. With the rare Appendix and Accompaniment complete. Containing in all 434 pages and 122 Plates. 4to, cloth, price L2 10s. net.

EXAMPLES OF OLD FURNITURE, ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. Drawn and described by ALFRED ERNEST CHANCELLOR. Containing 40 Photo-lithographic Plates exhibiting some 100 examples of Elizabethan, Stuart, Queen Anne, Georgian and Chippendale furniture; and an interesting variety of Continental work. With historical and descriptive notes. Large 4to, gilt, price L1 5s., net L1 1s.

"In publishing his admirable collection of drawings of old furniture, Mr. Chancellor secures the gratitude of all admirers of the consummate craftsmanship of the past. His examples are selected from a variety of sources with fine discrimination, all having an expression and individuality of their own—qualities that are so conspicuously lacking in the furniture of our own day. It forms a very acceptable work."—The Morning Post.

FURNITURE AND DECORATION IN ENGLAND DURING THE XVIIITH CENTURY.—By J. ALDAM HEATON. Two volumes, each of two parts, bound in four, large folio, cloth, price L7 net. Containing upwards of 150 plates of photographic reproductions from the published designs of R. & J. Adam, Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Sheraton, Shearer, Pergolesi, Cipriani, Darly, Johnson, Richardson, and all great English designers and cabinet-makers of the period.

This work forms an encyclopaedic and almost inexhaustible treasury of reference for all Furniture Designers, Painters, Interior Decorators, Cabinet-makers, &c., since no artist of importance is unrepresented, and a fair selection is in every case given of his work.

REMAINS OF ECCLESIASTICAL WOOD-WORK.—A Series of Examples of Stalls, Screens, Book-Boards, Roofs, Pulpits, &c., containing 21 Plates beautifully engraved on Copper, from drawings by T. TALBOT BURY, Archt. 4to, half-bound, price 10s. 6d., net 8s. 6d.

FLAT ORNAMENT: A PATTERN BOOK FOR DESIGNERS OF TEXTILES, EMBROIDERIES, WALL PAPERS, INLAYS, &C., &C.—150 Plates, some printed in Colours, exhibiting upwards of 500 Historical Examples of Textiles, Embroideries, Paper Hangings, Tile Pavements, Intarsia Work, &c. With some Designs by Dr. FISCHBACH. Imperial 4to boards, cloth back, price L1 5s., net 20s.

EXAMPLES OF ENGLISH MEDIAEVAL FOLIAGE AND COLOURED DECORATION.—By JAS. K. COLLING, Architect, F.R.I.B.A. Taken from Buildings of the XIIth to the XVth Century. Containing 76 Lithographic Plates, and 79 Woodcut Illustrations, with Text. Royal 4to, cloth, gilt top, price 18s., net 15s. (published at L2 2s.)

PLASTERING—PLAIN AND DECORATIVE. A Practical Treatise on the Art and Craft of Plastering and Modelling. Including full descriptions of the various Tools, Materials, Processes and Appliances employed. With over 50 full-page Plates, and about 500 smaller Illustrations in the Text. By WILLIAM MILLAR. With an Introduction, treating of the History of the Art, by G. T. ROBINSON, F.S.A. Thick 4to, cloth, containing 600 pages of text, price 18s. net.

"This new and in many senses remarkable treatise ... unquestionably contains an immense amount of valuable first-hand information.... 'Millar on Plastering' may be expected to be the standard authority on the subject for many years to come.... A truly monumental work."—The Builder.

A GRAMMAR OF JAPANESE ORNAMENT AND DESIGN.—Illustrated by 65 Plates, many in Gold and Colours, representing all Classes of Natural and Conventional Forms, drawn from the Originals, with introductory, descriptive, and analytical text. By T. W. CUTLER, F.R.I.B.A. Imperial 4to, in elegant cloth binding, price L2 6s., L1 18s. net.

DECORATIVE WROUGHT IRONWORK OF THE 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES.—By D. J. EBBETTS. Containing 16 large Lithographic Plates, illustrating 70 English examples of Screens, Grilles, Panels, Balustrades, &c. Folio, boards, cloth back, price 12s. 6d., net 10s.

A Facsimile reproduction of one of the rarest and most remarkable Books of Designs ever published in England.

A NEW BOOKE OF DRAWINGS OF IRONWORKE.—Invented and Desined by JOHN TIJOU. Containing severall sortes of Iron Worke, as Gates, Frontispieces, Balconies, Staircases, Pannells, &c., of which the most part hath been wrought at the Royall Building of Hampton Court, &c. ALL FOR THE USE OF THEM THAT WORKE IRON IN PERFECTION AND WITH ART. (Sold by the author in London, 1693.) Containing 20 folio Plates. With Introductory Note and Descriptions of the Plates by J. STARKIE GARDNER. Folio, bound in boards, old style, price 25s. net.

Only 150 copies were printed for England, and very few now remain. An original copy is priced at L48 by Mr. Quaritch, the renowned bookseller.

JAPANESE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF DESIGN.

BOOK I.—Containing over 1,500 engraved curios, and most ingenious Geometric Patterns of Circles, Medallions, &c., comprising Conventional Details of Plants, Flowers, Leaves, Petals, also Birds, Fans, Animals, Key Patterns, &c., &c. Oblong 12mo, fancy covers, price 2s. net.

BOOK II.—Containing over 600 most original and effective Designs for Diaper Ornament, giving the base lines to the design, also artistic Miniature Picturesque Sketches. Oblong 12mo, price 2s. net.

These books exhibit the varied charm and originality of conception of Japanese Ornament, and form an inexhaustible field of design.

A DELIGHTFUL SERIES OF STUDIES OF BIRDS, IN MOST CHARACTERISTIC AND LIFE-LIKE ATTITUDES, SURROUNDED WITH APPROPRIATE FOLIAGE AND FLOWERS.—By the celebrated Japanese Artist, BAIREI KONO. In three Books, 8vo, each containing 36 pages of highly artistic and decorative Illustrations, printed in tints. Bound in fancy paper covers, price 10s. net.

"In attitude and gesture and expression, these Birds, whether perching or soaring, swooping or brooding, are admirable."—Magazine of Art.

A NEW SERIES OF BIRD AND FLOWER STUDIES. BY WATANABE SIETEI, the acknowledged leading living Artist in Japan. In 3 Books, containing numerous exceedingly Artistic Sketches in various tints, 8vo, fancy covers. Price 10s. net.

ARTISTS' SKETCH BOOKS.—A SERIES OF FIVE VOLUMES.—Vol. I.: Birds, Flowers, and Plants, drawn in a Decorative Spirit. Vol. II.: Sketches of Insects, Plants, &c., drawn for Designers. Vol. III.: Drawings of Fishes and Marine Animals. Vol. IV.: Natural Scenery, Landscapes, &c. Vol. V.: Scenes from Japanese Life, &c. 8vo, fancy covers. 7s. 6d. net.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY.—A General View for the Use of Students and Others. By W. J. ANDERSON, A.R.I.B.A., Director of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art. Second Edition, revised and enlarged. Containing 64 full-page Plates, mostly reproduced from Photographs, and 100 Illustrations in text. Large 8vo, cloth gilt, price 12s. 6d. net.

"A delightful and scholarly work ... very fully illustrated."—Journal R.I.B.A.

"It is the work of a scholar taking a large view of his subject.... The book affords easy and intelligible reading, and the arrangement of the subject is excellent, though this was a matter of no small difficulty."—The Times.

"Should rank amongst the best architectural writings of the day."—The Edinburgh Review.

"We know of no book which furnishes such information and such illustrations in so compact and attractive a form. For greater excellence with the object in hand there is not one more perspicuous."—The Building News.

A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE FOR THE STUDENT, CRAFTSMAN AND AMATEUR.—Being a Comparative View of the Historical Styles from the Earliest Period. By BANISTER FLETCHER, F.R.I.B.A., Professor of Architecture in King's College, London, and B. F. FLETCHER, A.R.I.B.A. Containing 300 pages, with 115 Collotype Plates, mostly from large Photographs, and other Illustrations in the text. Third Edition, revised. Cr. 8vo, cloth gilt, price 12s. 6d., net 10s.

"We shall be amazed if it is not immediately recognised and adopted as par excellence the student's manual of the history of architecture."—The Architect.

"The general reader will read the book with not less profit than the student, and will find in it quite as much as he is likely to retain in his memory, and the architectural student in search of any particular fact will readily find it in this most methodical work.... As complete as it well can be."—The Times.

"As a synopsis of architectural dates and styles, Professor Banister Fletcher's work will fill a void in our literature, and become a most useful manual."—The Building News.

THE ORDERS OF ARCHITECTURE: GREEK, ROMAN AND ITALIAN.—Edited with Notes by R. PHENE SPIERS, F.S.A., F.R.I.B.A. Third Edition, revised and enlarged, containing 26 Plates. 4to, cloth, price 10s. 6d., net 8s. 6d.

"A most useful work for architectural students.... Mr. Spiers has done excellent service in editing this work, and his notes on the plates are very appropriate and useful."—British Architect.

THE END