When, in experiments on light, the shafts of colour are thrown on the wall, they are greeted with shouts of admiration; but these glories are veiled to us by the fact that the eye cannot dissect the prismatic ray without the assistance of the instrument that has revealed it. This is a merciful arrangement; for we are not fitted to live in a prismatic display, any more than in a continuity of lightning flashes. We should go mad or blind if exposed to either.

Science has shown us the perfect beauty of colour without form, the soothing pleasures of its harmonies, and the delightful surprises of its contrasts. From the glimpses we have of its nature and laws, we may hope for fresh inspiration for the art of the colourist.

Though it is true that each eye, even when educated, retains its own special appreciation of the colours that gratify its seeing nerve, yet there are certain standards which give almost universal pleasure.[287]

The blind and the colour-blind must remain exceptions for all time; and there are many gradations in colour-blindness, till we come to the normal class of seeing eyes; and passing them by, reach to those few men, gifted beyond all others with that fund of sensitive eye-nerve and mental power, which enables them to create new thoughts in colour.[288] Titian and his school arose from the inherited science and tradition, and carefully prepared pigments of his immediate predecessors, acting on an exceptional eye and mind, imbued with the splendours of the early mornings and the sunsets in the glowing atmosphere of Venice.

Colour has long been supposed to convey certain impressions to the mind. The absence of all colour, which we call "black," symbolizes in dress, grief, pride, or dignity; according as it drapes the mourner, the Spanish grandee, or the priest.[289] Yellow being the colour of the sun and of corn and gold, represents riches, generosity, and light. Red stands between the dark and the lively colours, and represents warmth and animation, dignity, splendour, life, love, and joy.

The expression of blue is that of purity. It recalls the distant sky, the calm ocean, and has an immortal and celestial character. It ascends to the highest and descends to the lowest tones of chiaro-oscuro. Nothing so nearly approaches pure white as the palest blue; nothing is so nearly black as the darkest.

Green has been assigned by nature the place of the universal background. It is the complementary colour of red, softening and assimilating it by reflected shadows, and setting off the glory of every flower and fruit. The expression of green is gaiety and modesty, light and tenderness, shadow and repose, to both the eye and the mind.[290]

It must be allowed that it is by the earliest associations of the individual, or by those derived from the family, the tribe or the nation, that colours are connected with such attributes welded by art and time into traditional meanings, which they absolutely possess,[291] and from which fashion cannot disconnect them; such, for instance, is the royalty of purple.

The word purple is so indiscriminately used as a poetic epithet, rather than as a distinctive appellation, that much confusion has been caused by it. Historically, among the Persians, Greeks, and Romans it appears to have been simply the royal colour, varying from the purest blue, through every shade of violet, down to the deepest crimson. Sometimes, poetically, "purple" seems to have described only a surface. The breezy or stormy sea was purple; the sky was purple; the hyacinthine locks of Narcissus, the rosy lips of Venus were purple. As a textile, velvet was purple, even when it was white.[292]

The epithets "purple" and "wine-coloured" are often bestowed on the Mediterranean Sea, and are justified by its occasional hue:—

"As from the clouds, deep-bosom'd, swell'd with showers, A sudden storm the purple ocean sweeps, Drives the wild waves, and tosses all the deeps."

Pope's Homer, "Iliad," b. xi. v. 383.

Professor Tyndall suggests that the soft green of the sea, shadowed by clouds, assumes a subjective purple hue. Homer must have observed this before he became blind.

Pliny gives us much information about this colour; he enumerates the different sea-shores and coasts, Egyptian, Asiatic, and European, whence came the shell-fish (the murex and pelagia) that produced the so-called Tyrian purple dyes.[293]

He says that Romulus wore the purple, and that the dyed garments, all purple, were sacred to the gods in those days. After saying that it was still a colour of distinction, he continues: "Let us be prepared to excuse the frantic passion for purple, though we are impelled to inquire why such a high value is placed on the produce of this fish, seeing that in the dye the smell of it is offensive, and the colour, of a greenish hue, resembles the sea when tempestuous." He describes purples[294] as being differently coloured according as to whether these "conchylia" inhabited the sea mud, the reefs, or the pebbly shores, the last being the most valuable.[295] This purple, said to have been imported from the coasts of Tyre, was till lately sold in Rome for its weight in gold; it gave the burning rosy red dye of the Cardinal's robes, and was called "Porpora encarnadina," purple incarnadine. It is full of light and freshness, and never fades; in fact, it has all the qualities ascribed to it by Pliny. It intensifies in the light.[296]

After purple, scarlet was the colour most esteemed by the ancients. The Israelites must have carried with them the dyes which coloured the hangings, woven or embroidered, belonging to the sanctuary in the wilderness, of which the outer covering of rams' skins was dyed scarlet, and was probably of the nature of red morocco.[297]

There was the mineral dye, (cinnabar or red sulphate of mercury), and the insect dye; the first was probably used in mural painting. It is translated in our Bible as vermilion, in the account given by Jeremiah of a "house, ceiled with cedar, and painted with vermilion."[298] Also Ezekiel gives us another instance of house-painting in vermilion.[299] Homer, who as a rule does not describe colouring, says the Greek ships were painted red.

It is probable that cinnabar was tempered, by admixture of white or other colours, for the monochrome painting of the Egyptians and Greeks. It was called by the Greeks miltos, by the Romans minium.

The dye of the red portions of the funeral tent of Queen Isi-em-Kheb, Shishak's mother-in-law, is found by analysis to be composed of hematite (peroxyde of iron) tempered with lime. This is a beautiful pink red.[300]

The mineral red now called vermilion must have borrowed its name from the insect dye which the Greeks and Romans called "kermes." In the Middle Ages the dye from the kermes was still called "vermiculata," of which the word vermilion is a literal translation.

We should be fortunate if we could find how the Greeks and Romans prepared the cinnabar for mural painting, of which we find remnants in ruins and tombs—a lovely and pure red, with a tender bloom on it like a fragment of the rainbow, and not the slightest shade of yellow.

One of the most beautiful specimens of this scarlet that I am acquainted with, is a small drinking-cup (a "rhyton") at the British Museum, in the form of a sphinx, with a white face, gilded hair, and a little cap of pure cinnabar, which is so soft in tone that it suggests the texture of scarlet velvet.

Cochineal, which was first brought from America in the sixteenth century, has now replaced almost every other scarlet dye for textiles.

Crimson is once mentioned in Chronicles as karmel,[301] which may mean the dye of the kermes insect;[302] and from this the word crimson is legitimately derived. Whether the scarlet coupled with it is a vegetable, mineral, or insect colour, we have no means of ascertaining. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red as crimson, they shall be as wool."[303]

From what Pliny says, it appears that some green dyes were produced from a green clay; others from metals. Copper furnished the most beautiful shades.

Blue has always been extracted from indigo. Pliny tells us that the Phoenicians brought it from Barbarike, in the Indies, to Egypt; and he quotes the "Periplus" on this subject. He gives an amusing report that indigo is a froth collected round the stems of certain reeds; but he was aware of its characteristic property, that of emitting a beautiful purple vapour when submitted to great heat; and he says it smells like the sea. The Egyptians likewise extracted blues from copper.

Yellow was anciently, in Egypt, sometimes a vegetable and sometimes a mineral dye. Browns and blacks were prepared from several substances, especially pine wood and the contents of tombs burned into a kind of charcoal.

We find that lime, chalk, white lead, and other mineral substances were employed by the ancients for the different approaches to dazzling whiteness. That of the lily, the emblem of purity, can only be emulated in textile or pictorial art by opaque substances reduced as much as possible by bleaching to the last expression of the colour of the raw material. Nothing that is transparent can be really white, as colours are seen through it, as well as the reflected lights on the two surfaces.

In painting, we can produce the effect of whiteness in different ways, leading by the gradation of tender colours and shadows up to a high light. But in textile art, which is essentially flat, it is necessary to pursue a different method, and that of isolation is the most simple and effective, and was well understood in Egypt, Greece, and India. The white pattern, or flower, is surrounded with a fine dark line (black is the best), which effectually separates it from all the surrounding colours, and gives it the effect of light, even when the whiteness retains enough of the natural colour of the raw material to tone it down very perceptibly. The eye accepts it as white, and ignores the tint that pervades it, and is hardly to be expelled from silk or wool. Linen and cotton are the whitest of materials, after passing through the hands of the chemist or the bleacher.

It is amusing to observe that Pliny regarded colours, whether vegetable or mineral, rather as useful for the pharmacopeia of his day, than as dyes or artistic pigments. He speaks contemptuously of the art of his time, and yet he gives some curious hints that are well worth collecting for experiment. His fragmentary information, though often inaccurate, is most valuable to those who are seeking once more to find lasting colours, and despair of discovering mordants that will fix the aniline tints. From him we learn more of the Egyptian colouring materials than of any others, as he named their sources, European, Asiatic, or African; and there is no doubt of the perfection of their mural pigments and textile dyes, which have remained unimpaired to the present time.

Renouf says that "painting, as it is now understood, was totally unknown to the Egyptians; but they understood harmony of colour,[304] and formulated in it certain principles for decorative uses. They made the primary colours predominate over the secondary by quantity and position. They introduced fillets of white or yellow in their embroideries, as well as in their paintings, between reds and greens, to isolate them; and they balanced masses of yellow with a due proportion of black." They never blended their colours, and had no sense of the harmony of prismatic gradations, or the melting of one tint into another; each was worked up to a hard and fast edge line. If in one part of a building, one set of colours predominated, they placed a greater proportion of other colours elsewhere, within the range of sight, so as to readjust the balance. Those they employed were mostly earthy mineral colours (used alike for frescoes and for painting cotton cloths, though vegetable dyes were needed for woollens and linens). These were: for white, pure chalk; for black, bone-black mixed with gum; for yellow, yellow ochre; for green, a mixture of yellow ochre and powdered blue glass; for blue, this same blue glass mixed with white chalk; for red, an earthy pigment containing iron and aluminium.[305] They understood the chemistry of bleaching, and the use of mordants in dyeing.[306]

The statistical records of China of the time of Hias (2205 B.C.), according to Semper, mention colours as being of five tints, and all the produce of the Chinese Empire.[307]

In the unchanging art of India, the ancient colours are used now. Therefore, when we give the following list, we must suppose that it embraces all that have been known from the beginning.

Indian dyes are mostly vegetable. For yellow, akalbir, the root of the Datiscus Canabinus; also yellow is dyed with asbarg, the flower of the Cabul larkspur (Delphinium sp.).

Orange. Soneri dyed with narsingar, the honey-scented flower of nyclanthes (Arbor Tristis).

Scarlet is first dyed with cochineal (formerly with kermes), which gives a crimson colour; next with narsingar, which turns it vermilion.

Purple is dyed first with cochineal (formerly kermes), afterwards with indigo.

Lilac. Ditto, only paler.

Blue. All shades of indigo.

Green. With indigo first, and next the various yellow dyes.

Brown. Sandal-wood, called "sandali;" almond colour (Badami).

Grey. Sulphate of iron and gold.

Black. Deepest shade of indigo.[308]

Speaking of Indian coloured textiles, Sir G. Birdwood says: "All violent contrasts are avoided. The richest colours are used, but are so arranged as to produce the effect of a neutral bloom, which tones down every detail almost to the softness and transparency of the atmosphere." He says that in their apparel both the colouring and the ornaments are adapted to the effect which the fabrics will produce when worn and in motion. "It is only through generations of patient practice that men attain to the mystery of such subtleties."

An outline, in black or some dark colour that harmonizes with the ground, or else worked in gold, is common in Indian work, not only for the purpose of isolating the colours of the design, but also to give a uniform tone to the whole surface of the texture. Their traditional arrangements of tints were thoroughly satisfying to the eye. But degenerated by European commerce, the artistic sense of beauty itself is disappearing throughout our Indian Empire.

Persian carpets (the fine old ones of the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries) give us lessons in the art of isolating colours. In these, a flower will lie upon a surface which contains two or more other tints, and as the design passes over them, the outline colour is changed, so as to isolate the flower equally on the different grounds. This is done with such art that the eye ignores the transition till it is called to remark it. For instance, as a white, or no-coloured pattern, wanders over a green and red ground, the outline changes suddenly from green to red, and again to green as it leaves the opposite colour on the ground pattern.

Mr. Floyer speaks of the brilliancy and lasting qualities of the dyes which the Persians, by slow and tedious processes, extract from plants; from the "runaschk" (madder), a fine red; from the "zarili" (the golden), which is a yellow flower from Khorasan, and also from the leaves of the vine, a bright yellow.[309] They import indigo from Shastra (or from India), by the Khurum river. He says these dyes are perfectly fast, leaving no trace on a wetted rubber, whereas the European dyes they sometimes use come off freely.

Pliny says the Gauls had invented dyes counterfeiting the purple of Tyre; also scarlet, violet, and green, all of these were dipped in the juices of herbs.[310]

Vitruvius says the Romans extracted dyes from flowers and fruits, but he neither specifies nor describes them.

The ancient Highland tartans were dyed with bark of alder for black, bark of willow for flesh colour. A lichen growing on stones supplied their violets and crimson.[311] The lichen on the birch-tree gives a good brown; heather gives red, purple, and green.[312]

Thus we see that pure colours for dyeing textiles have been extracted from vegetable substances—herbs, wood, seeds, flowers and fruits, mosses and sea-weeds;[313] mineral substances—earths, sands, ores, metals, rusts, and stones; animal substances—both of land, water, and air; beasts, fishes, shells, birds, and insects.

It is evident, from the derivation of the word, that there were chromatic scales in colour before the phrase was ever applied to music.

The Greeks and Romans are supposed to have understood chromatic scales of tints—animal, vegetable, and mineral—and except with the intention of producing startling effects, they did not mix them. They felt that each was harmonious as a whole, and, unlike the Egyptians, they studied harmony. They arranged their scales according to the materials from which they were extracted, and kept those from different chemical sources apart, as being discordant.[314] One scale was that of the iodine colours, of and from the sea. Marine products are mostly iridescent. To comprehend this, think of the harmonious interchange of delicate tints, called by the ancients "purple," on a string of pearls. Shells and shell-fish, sea-weeds and fish, furnished these dyes. They were called "conchiliata."

The chemistry of the arts of bleaching was not unknown to the ancients; but they reserved and regulated it for certain purposes, preferring to retain at least a part of the original colouring, as shades of grounding which served, as a surface glaze does in painting, to connect and harmonize the superinduced tints.

Experiments with the object of reviving this mode of producing harmonious combinations, have been made lately at the Wilton Carpet Works, by dyeing shades of colour on unbleached goat's and camel's hair, and sheep's wool; and the tones produced are beautifully soft and rich.

M. Edouard Charton ascribes the great change in the modern scales of colours to the discovery by the French, in the Gobelins, of a pure scarlet dye, the use of which made it necessary to raise the tone of all other colours. He says that scarlet was formerly represented by the dye called kermes, which indeed was not scarlet, but altered from crimson to something approaching it by the addition of narsingar, of which the bright yellow gave the scarlet effect.

M. Chevreul, director of the dyeing department of the Gobelins, has succeeded in composing the chromatic prism, to which I have already alluded, containing 4420 different tones. We may take it for granted, that from these may be selected any possible scale of tints required for decorative work. This vast area for choice of our material will impose on the artist of the future fresh responsibilities.

In the typical Oriental colouring, the whole arrangement was traditional, and it was irreligious to depart from what had been fixed by statute many centuries before, and only perfected by the experience of many generations of men; and this veneration for traditional custom has hitherto been prevalent in European art to a certain point. But the old conservative perfection of unadulterated colour has already been done away with. The freedom of experimental art is chartered, and mercantile interests now, as ever, govern the supply of materials.

Our normal bad taste and carelessness has been cast back on the lands which were the cradle of art, and we receive, to our surprise, gaudy, vulgar, and discordant combinations from the East, whence we drew our first inspirations. For the future we shall have to study ancient specimens, and correct our errors by the help of their teaching to the eye and mind.

Gas colours are at present our worst snares. They are in general very beautiful; but they are so evanescent, and fade into such unexpected and contradictory tones, that we cannot reckon upon them. When embroidering with the coloured materials of the day, we are in constant dread of what disastrous effect may be produced by the first shaft of sunshine that may fall from our moderately illuminated sky, through the uncurtained window.

The trade in colours can hardly be an honest one, till the means of fixing each tint permanently is ascertained.[315] At any rate, something should be done towards grouping them, with respect to their enduring qualities, so that when they fade, if fade they must, they may do so harmoniously, and in sympathy with each other; and while they are in their first glow they should be selected, as much as possible, from what Pliny calls natural colours,[316] which recall the exquisite effects of nature, searched out and displayed by every sunny gleam, reflected on each other in lovely tones, and subdued and veiled by passing shadows. It is said that Mr. Wardle, of Leek, is now seeking for dyes of pure unadulterated colours, and mordants to fix them. He deserves all success.

The reason I have entered, in even so cursory a manner, into the history of colours is my desire to point out the great value placed, long ago, on the careful preparation of those used in ancient textile art; and to show how our forefathers sought them out in many lands and waters; how they noted their varieties; how they classed and prized them for their endurance as well as for their pristine beauty; how they paid their weight in gold or silver for certain culminating tints; and how they, therefore, produced works which became matters of history and landmarks in civilization.

FOOTNOTES:

[283] "Seeing, they saw not, neither did they understand."

[284] See Pliny's "Natural History," which gives much information on the subject.

[285] E. Curtius, "Greek History;" Engl. Trans., i. p. 438; Bluemner's "Technologie," p. 216.

[286] Charpentier "differentiates in every normal eye a sensibility for light, a sensibility for colour, and a sensibility for form (a visual sensibility)."—See "Modern Theories of Colour," The Lancet, August 19th, 1882, p. 276. We can perceive, by studying works of art, how variously these gifts are distributed, or, at any rate, how differently they are received and acted upon by individual minds.

[287] The effect of colour on the brain is a subject only just now beginning to attract attention. Experiments on the insane have been made in Italy, especially, I believe, at Venice; and it is said to be ascertained that red and green are irritants, whereas windows glazed with blue glass alternating with white have sensibly calmed the nerves of the patients.

[288] Let us compare the beautiful creations of the Venetian school with the demoralizing brightness of aniline colours, or the opaque, earthy tints which some call beautiful, mistaking their dulness for softness and sobriety of colouring. But they, too, have their uses.

[289] Black and red are, in ecclesiastical work, the emblems of mourning.

[290] The Bardic rules in early Britain enjoined three simple colours: sky blue, the emblem of peace, for the bard and poet; green, for the master of natural history and woodcraft; spotless white (the symbol of holiness), for the priest and Druid.

[291] The blind man said that red was like the sound of a trumpet, which shows what a soul-stirring colour it was in his mind's eye.

[292] "Purpura" is supposed to mean crimson velvet. It came, like "cramoisi," to be a name for a tissue. Fr. Michell quotes velvet of Vermeil-cramoisi, "violet and blue cramoisi, and pourpre of divers colours," but he says he never met with "pourpre blanche." Yule, ed. 1875, i. p. 67. Plano Carpini (p. 755) says the courtiers of Karakorum were clad in "white purpura;" and that on the first day of the great festival in honour of the inauguration of Kuyuk Khan, all the Mogul nobles were clad in pourpre blanche, the second day in ruby purple, and the third in blue purple: on the fourth day they appeared in Baudichin (cloth of gold). (Yule, "Marco Polo," vol. i. p. 376.) White purple is also named in the inventories of Sta. Maria Maggiore at Rome, and those of Notre Dame in Paris. "Histoire du Tissu Ancien, a l'Exposition de l'Union Generale des Arts Decoratifs."

[293] Francois Le Normant, in his "Grande Grece," tells of the dye of the purple of Tarentum from the murex, found in the Mare Piccolo. He says that Tarentine muslins, woven from the filaments of the pinna dipped in the dye of the murex, rivalled those of Cos. Le Normant laments the total neglect of the murex in these days (could its trade be revived?) Plutarch says that Alexander the Great, having made himself master of Susa (Shushan), found, amongst other riches of marvellous value, "purple of Hermione" worth forty thousand talents (Quintus Curtius says fifty thousand), which, though it had been stored 190 years, retained all its freshness and beauty. See Plutarch's "Lives," edited by J. and W. Langhorne, vol. ii. p. 739; Bluemner, i. p. 224-240. The reason assigned for their dye being so perfect was that the Susanians knew how to comb the wool to be dipped, and prepare it with honey. According to Aristotle the dress of Alcisthenes, the Sybarite, was dyed with this purple from Shushan (Ciampini, Vet. Mon.).

[294] Semper gives us an account of iodine colours. Some, he says, were extracted from sea-weeds, green and yellow; the purples, when finest, from the shell-fish. The Phoenician coasts gave the best purples; those of the Atlantic the best blacks and browns. And thus he completes the scale of iodine colours. See Semper, "Der Stil," i. p. 206.

[295] Heaps of the shells of this "murex trunculus" have been found at Pompeii, near the dyers' works. Hardouin says that in his time they were found at Otranto, and similar remains have been noticed at Sidon. Sir James Lacaita informs me that the living shells are still found along the shores of the Adriatic, as well as on the wash near Argos. No doubt the Phoenicians traded first in the produce of the Sidonian and Tyrian coasts, though they afterwards went farther afield in collecting their dyes. Auberville says that the purple of the Romans was a deep violet (double dyed, purpurae dibaphae), and that this colour was Asiatic. The Phoenicians traded in it, and sold it for its weight in silver. Instead of fading in the sunshine, its colour intensified. The enduring nature of this colour is proved by the purple fragments from a Greek tomb in the Crimea of about 300 B.C., described in chapter on stitches, p. 217. See "Histoire du Tissu Ancien, a l'Exposition de l'Union Generale des Arts Decoratifs."

[296] Though really red of the purest colour, it doubtless received its name of Tyrian purple as being one of the materials of the amethystine double dye. The web or fleece was first dipped in the dye of Purpura, and then in that of the Buccinum, or they reversed the process to give a different tint. This is Pliny's account of the process of dyeing, which is very simple, and gives no details. Semper says that the ancients called black and white the two extremes of purple—white the thinnest, and black the thickest or most solid layer of colour. Both were thus considered as colour. (Semper, i. pp. 205-7.) As long as there is light, black always appears to be either blue, or brown, or green, till with darkness all colour disappears.

[297] Exod. xxv. Semper (i. p. 103) suggests that these rams' skins were dyed with the periploca secamone—a plant still used for this purpose in Egypt.

[298] Jeremiah xxii. 14.

[299] Ezekiel xxiii. 14: "The images of the Chaldeans." "The men portrayed in vermilion on the wall."

[300] Villiers Stuart, "Funeral Tent of an Egyptian Queen." See Appendix.

[301] 2 Chron. ii. 7.

[302] The Arabs received the kermis from Armenia, and the name was originally "Quer-mes," "oak-apple." Sardis was famed for its kermes dye. See Birdwood, "Indian Arts," p. 238, ed. 1880, and Yule's "Marco Polo," i. p. 67.

[303] Isa. ii. 18.

[304] Renouf's Hibbert Lectures, p. 67-69. It may be called balance, rather than harmony.

[305] Wilkinson, "Manners of the Ancient Egyptians," vol. iii. pp. 301-3.

[306] Bluemner, p. 220. See Pliny, "Natural History," xxxv. 42.

[307] Semper, i. p. 248.

[308] See Birdwood's "Indian Arts," p. 272. In the Code of Manu, black garments are sacred to the Indian Saturn, yellow to Venus, and red to Mars. See Birdwood, p. 235.

[309] See Floyer's "Unexplored Baluchistan," pp. 278, 373, 406. The Persians produce their deep yellow from the skin of the pomegranate, by boiling it in alum. Major Murdoch Smith describes the Persian processes for dyeing patterns red and black in textiles. The Italian women dye their own dresses in the pomegranate yellow; also in turmeric yellow, and other vegetable dyes.

[310] Pliny, "Natural History," xxii. 3. Unfortunately, Pliny seldom condescends to give us the recipes for dyeing processes.

[311] Logan's "Scottish Garb."

[312] See Elton's "Origins of English History."

[313] The Cretan tincture was extracted from a plant which Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Pliny respectively name. The last calls it the Phycos thalassion. This was not a sea-weed, but a lichen—probably the same from which the orchid purple of modern art is prepared. See Birdwood, "Indian Arts," i. p. 238.

[314] The same scale of colour varies as much on the different textiles employed, as it does from the colours extracted from other chemicals. Silk, wool, cotton, flax, give very different results. The colouring matter may be identical, yet you cannot place them side by side without being aware that they may be repellant, instead of harmonious in tone. The scale is sometimes removed to another pitch, and they will no more harmonize than instruments that have not been attuned to the same diapason. See Redgrave's Report on Textile Fabrics.

[315] With the changes in colouring materials has arisen the necessity for discovering new mordants. The gas colour of madder is exactly the same chemically as that extracted from the vegetable, but the old mordant does not fix it, and it changes very soon to a dull blackish-purple hue.

[316] Pliny, "Natural History," ix. 12. The most unnatural, and the most disagreeable dyes, are the magentas. Sir G. Birdwood tells us that the Maharajah of Cashmere has adopted a most efficient plan for the suppression of magenta dyes within his dominions—first, a duty of 45 per cent. on entering the country, and at a certain distance within the frontier, they are confiscated and destroyed.



CHAPTER VI.

Part 1.

STITCHES.

Stitches in needlework correspond to the touches of the pencil or brush in drawing or painting, or to the strokes of the chisel in sculpture. The needle is the one implement of the craft by which endless forms of surface-work are executed. With a thread through its one eye, it blindly follows each effort of its pointed foot, urged by the intelligent or mechanical hand grouping the stitches, which, being long or short, single or mixed, slanting, upright, or crossed, are selected as the best fitted for the design and purpose in hand. The word "stitches" does not, however, in this chapter represent merely the plural of one particular process of needle insertion, but the produce and effect of each different kind of stitch by grouping and repetition, according to its most ancient nomenclature. That which is astonishing is the endless variety of surface, of design, of hints and suggestions, of startling effects, and of lovely combinations, resulting from the direction of the needle and manipulation of the materials, and differing from each other according to the power or the caprice of the worker. But the machine is always the same—the threaded needle strikes the same interval, forming the "stitch."

This venerable implement, the needle, has, through the ages, varied but little in form. The attenuated body, the sharp foot, the rounded head, and the eye to hold the thread, are the same in principle, whether it is found in the cave-man's grave, formed of a fish's bone or shaped from that of a larger animal; hammered of the finest bronze, as from Egypt, or of gold, like those found in Scandinavia. A bronze needle was lately discovered in the tomb of a woman of the Vikings in Scotland, and its value is shown by its being placed in a silver case. Steel needles were first made in England in 1545, by a native of India. His successor, Christopher Greening, established a workshop in 1560 at Long Crendon, in Bucks, which existed there as a needle factory till quite lately. The rustic poetic drama, entitled "Gammer Gurton's Needle," performed at Ch. Coll., Cambridge, in 1566, was a regular comedy, of which a lost needle was the hero. In those days the village needle was evidently still a rare and precious possession.



The art of embroidery consists of a design, which includes the pattern, and the handicraft or stitches—the "motive" and the "needlework."

In painting, as in sculpture, the first idea, as well as the last touch, must come from the same head and hand. But in needlework it is not so. The pattern is the result of tradition. It is almost always simply a variation of old forms, altered and renewed by surrounding circumstances and sudden or gradual periods of change.

However much the design may alter, rising often to the highest point of decorative art, and as often falling back to the lowest and most meaningless repetitions and imitations, the stitches themselves vary but little. The same are to be found in Egyptian and Greek specimens, and the classical names are those used by mediaeval writers, and have come down to us, "floating like bubbles on the waves of time."

Sir George Birdwood[317] thinks that every kind of stitch is found in traditional Indian work. I confess that I have not been able hitherto to trace any of the "mosaic" stitches to India, nor do we ever see them in Chinese or Japanese embroidery, which shows every other variety. They are, however, occasionally found in Egyptian work.

The following is a list of stitches, under the nomenclature of classical, Roman and mediaeval authors:—

Opus Phrygionium or Phrygium. Passing or metal thread work. Opus Pulvinarium. Shrine or cushion work. Opus Plumarium. Plumage or feather work. Opus Consutum. Cut work. Opus Araneum or Filatorium. Net or lace work. Opus Pectineum. Tapestry or combed work.

Here are two English lists of stitches; their quaintness must be my excuse for copying them. The first is from Taylor, the water-poet's "Praise of the Needle" (sixteenth century):—

"Tent work, raised work, laid work, prest work, Net work, most curious pearl or rare Italian cut work, Fine fern stitch, finny stitch, new stitch, and chain stitch, Brave bred stitch, fisher stitch, Irish stitch, and queen's stitch, The Spanish stitch, rosemary stitch, and maw stitch, The smarting whip stitch, back stitch, and the cross stitch.— All these are good, and these we must allow, And these are everywhere in practice now."

The second list is from Rees' "Cyclopaedia" (Stitches), 1819:—

"Spanish stitch, Tent stitch on the finger, Tent stitch in the tent or frame, Irish stitch, Fore stitch, Gold stitch, Twist stitch, Fern stitch, Broad stitch, Rosemary stitch, Chip stitch, Raised work, Geneva work, Cut work, Laid work, Back stitch, Queen's stitch, Satin stitch, Finny stitch, Chain stitch, Fisher's stitch, Bow stitch, Cross stitch, Needlework purl, Virgin's device, Open cut work, Stitch work, Through stitch, Rock work, Net work, and Lent work.

"All which are swete manners of work wroughte by the needle with silke of all natures, purls, wyres, and weft or foreign bread ('braid'), etc., etc."

Part 2.

PLAIN WORK AND WHITE WORK.

We are told that the primal man and woman sewed in Paradise.

To "sew," in contradistinction to the word to "embroider," is derived from the Sanskrit su, suchi, and thence imported into Latin, suo.[318] To prove how highly esteemed needlework was among the Romans, I may mention that the equivalent of the phrase "to hit the right nail on the head" was rem acu tangere, "to touch the question with the point of the needle."

"Plain work" is that which is necessary. As soon as textiles are needed for covering and clothing, the means are invented for drawing the cut edges together, and for preventing the fraying where the material is lacerated by the shaping process. Hence the "seam," the "hem," and all the forms of stitches that bind and plait. These necessary stitches constitute plain needlework, and are closely followed by decorative stitches, which in gradation cover the space between plain needlework and embroidery.

Semper has given us his archaeological theories for the origin of needlework and its stitches.

These are his arguments, if not always his words. He says: "The seam is one of the first human successful efforts to conquer difficulties."[319]

A string, a ribbon, a band, may serve to keep together several loose things; but by means of the seam, small things actually become large ones. For example: a full-grown man can, by its help, cover himself with a garment made of the skins of many small animals. When Eve sewed fig-leaves together, she made of these small pieces a garment of patchwork.

Acting on the principle of making a virtue of necessity, accepting and adorning the severe facts of life, seams came to be an important vehicle of ornament. The Gauls and Britons embroidered the seams of their fur garments. "We may judge of the antiquity of the seam by its universal and mythological meaning. The seam, the tie, the knot, the plait, and the mesh are the earliest symbols of fate uniting events."[320]

We find but little mention of plain work in mediaeval writings. When linen was worked for some honourable purpose, such as a gift to a friend or a royal personage, it was generally embroidered or stitched in some fancy fashion. Queen Elizabeth presented Edward VI., on his second birthday, with a smock made by herself. Fine linen was about this time constantly edged with bone laces.

Mrs. Floyer has written so well, and given us so much practical information on plain needlework, that I feel it unnecessary to enter at any length into the principles of plain sewing, as my theme is needlework as decorative art.

Mrs. Floyer has, as it were, unpicked and unravelled every stitch in plain work, till she has discovered and laid bare its intention, its construction, and effect. She, has also given us rules made clear to the dullest understanding, instructing us how to teach the young and ignorant. She shows us the quickest and most perfect way of working different materials for different purposes, and tells us how to select them. I will, therefore, refer my readers to her most useful and instructive books,[321] and pass on at once from the craft of plain needlework, to stitches as the art of embroidery.

The link between plain and decorative work deserves attention. This link is "white embroidery." I imagine it was not a very ancient form of the art, and was practised first in mediaeval days; when we begin to have constant notices of it. The first white laces appear to have followed close upon the first white embroideries.

There is a tomb of the fourteenth century in the Church of the Ara Coeli at Rome, where the effigy of a knight lies on his bed, draped with a sheet and a coverlet, both embroidered. These are evidently of linen worked in white.[322] I give a drawing of them in illustration (pl. 39).

From that date we find continually mention of such work by nuns and ladies.[323] In England it was especially called "nuns' work" (plate 42). There is a great survival of this stitchery in Italy amongst the peasantry. They have always adorned their smocks and aprons, and their linen head-coverings, and the borders of sheets for great occasions, with patterns in "flat stitches," "cut stitches," and "drawn work." The Greek peasants do the same. In Germany will be found much curious white embroidery, of designs which show their antiquity; and from Spain we get "Spanish work" in black, on white linen, which is nearly allied to the stitches of white work.



Lord Arundel of Wardour possesses a linen cover for a tabernacle (or else it is a processional cloak) which is of the purest Hispano-Moorish design, and unrivalled in beauty. It is embroidered in Spanish stitches in white thread, on the finest linen, and is intersected with fine lace insertion (pl. 40). It is said to have been found in the time of Elizabeth with some other articles in a dry well; among them a little satin shoe, of which the shape proves its date to be of the end of Henry VIII.'s reign. Russian embroidery, consisting of geometrical patterns in red, blue, and black thread, is of this class.



In England alone, the peasantry do no white work for home use, and we must suppose it has never been a domestic occupation. Indeed, the love of the needle is by no means an English national tendency, in the lower classes. Nothing but the plainest work is taught in our schools. Anything approaching to decorative art, with us, has been the accomplishment of educated women, and not the employment of leisure moments in the houses of the poor.

Semper, in "Der Stil,"[324] gives rules for white embroidery, and the reasons from which he deduces them are good. He says, that allowing it as a maxim that each textile has its own uses and its own beauties, we should place nothing on linen which would militate against its inherent qualities and merits; and that, as the great beauty of flax is its smoothness and purity, all projections and roughnesses should be avoided which would catch dust or throw a shadow. Carrying out this idea, it would appear that satin, and not lace stitches are therefore, the most suitable for this kind of decoration. The accepted rule for selecting the stitch for each piece of work is this: on stout grounds the thread should be round and rich, whereas delicate materials carry best the most refined and shining thread work; and in embroidering the smooth surface of linen fabrics, the flattest stitches are the most appropriate.

Part 3.

OPUS PHRYGIUM (or gold work).

Gold embroideries were by the Romans attributed to the Phrygians. All gold work was vaguely supposed to be theirs, as all other embroidery was included in the craft of the Plumarii in Rome.

It has been disputed whether needlework in gold preceded the weaving of flat gold or thread into stuffs, or whether it was an after-thought, and an enrichment of such textiles. I imagine that the embroidery was the first, and that the after-thought was the art of weaving gold. Babylonian embroideries appear to be of gold wire, as we see them in the Ninevite marbles.

An instance of the way golden embroideries were displayed among the Greeks is that of the Athenian peplos, which, as I have already said (p. 32), was worked by embroideresses under the superintendence of two Arrhephorae of noble birth. It was either scarlet or saffron colour, and blazed with golden representations of the battles of the giants, or local myths and events in the history of Athens.[325]

The art of the Phrygians, who gave their name in Rome to all golden thread-work, has come down to us through the classic "auriphrygium" and the "orphreys" of the Middle Ages. Semper thinks that the flat gold embroidery was the first invented.[326]

The Phrygians had attained to the utmost perfection in tissue ornament when the Romans conquered them, and finding their art congenial to the growing luxury of Rome, they imported and domesticated it; both the people and their work retaining their national designation. Pliny, ignorant of the claims of the Chinese, gave to the Phrygians the credit of being the inventors of all embroidery.[327] The garments they thus decorated were called "phrygionae," and the work itself "opus Phrygium." The term "auriphrygium," at first given to work in gold only, was in time applied to all embroidery that admitted gold into its composition; and hence the English mediaeval term, "orphreys."

All the gold stitches now called "passing" came from Phrygia; Semper attributes all the "mosaic stitches" to the Phrygians, calling them "opus Phrygionium."[328] Gold stitches are splendidly exemplified in the embroidered mantle of St. Stephen, of the ninth century. The only somewhat earlier piece of mediaeval gold embroidery with which I am acquainted is the dalmatic of Charlemagne in the Vatican, richly embroidered in fine gold thread; and the mantle of the Emperor Henry II. in the Museum at Munich, worked by his Empress Kunigunda, who appears to have been somewhat parsimonious in her use of the precious material.

Almost all ecclesiastical and royal ancient embroideries were illuminated with golden grounds—golden outlines or golden flat embroideries. Later still, raised gold thread work has imitated gilt carvings or goldsmiths' jewellery; and we feel that it was at once removed from its place as embroidery, and became an elaborate imitation of what should belong to another craft.[329] Such deviations from the proper office and motive of needlework are so dangerously near to bad style and bad taste, that they always and inevitably have fallen into disrepute.

Part 4.

OPUS PULVINARIUM (or cushion work).

This "opus pulvinarium" is not only to be found in Oriental work, but it has also survived in a very few fragments from Egypt.[330] One of these, in the British Museum, is worked on canvas, in wool and flax; another in a white shining thread, resembling asbestos, on linen or fine canvas. They are regular "canvas" or "cross" stitches, and therefore, under mediaeval nomenclature, would be classed as "opus pulvinarium." This name must include all stitches in gold, silk, and wool, whether Phrygian, Egyptian, or Babylonian in their origin, excepting the flat and lace stitches (plate 41).



Semper's term, "mosaic" stitches, is a good one, as it covers all that are relegated into patterns in small square spaces, counted by the threads of the textile on which they are laid.[331] He believes that the mosaic patterns and cross stitches in needlework preceded the tesselated pavements, and formed their first motive, though the stitch now refers itself back to the mosaic, at least in name.

It is remarkable that in Chaldea and Assyria there still exist some ruined walls, which are adorned with pilasters, panels, and other architectural forms, covered with some sort of encaustic, imitating textile patterns.[332] The effect is produced by means of a kind of mosaic work of small nails or wedges of baked clay, with china or glazed coloured heads. These are inlaid into the unbaked clay or earth, of which the walls are constructed, and while binding it together, give the effect of the surface being hung with a material which has a pattern worked all over in cross stitch.

The Chinese, the Chaldeans, and the Assyrians long continued to show in their buildings the tradition of this style of decoration. In Egypt there has been found some unfinished mural painting where the plaster has been previously prepared by dividing it into small rectangular spaces, apparently on the principle of the canvas ground for cross stitches.

The name "mosaic" stitch does not interfere with, or militate against the classical appellation of opus pulvinarium, which means "shrine work" or "cushion stitches." These appear to have been from the first considered as the best suited for adorning cushions, chairs, footstools, and the beds on which men reclined at their feasts, as they are firmly-set stitches which will stand friction.

Most of the work now done in Syria, Turkey, Greece, and the Principalities, shows different forms of the mosaic stitches; so also does the national Russian work, which is Byzantine. All these designs are conventional and mostly geometrical.

This work, in the East, is generally the same on both sides. We may infer that the spoil anticipated by Sisera's mother, "the garments embroidered on both sides, fit for the necks of those who divide the spoil," was of this kind.

Thus we see that the "opus pulvinarium" has a very respectable ancestry; and though it had somewhat degenerated in the early part of our century, and had languished and almost died out under the name of Berlin wool work, yet it has done good service through the days of mediaeval art down to the present time, both in England and throughout Europe (pl. 42); and it will probably revive and continue to be generally used.

Though the least available for historical or pictorial work, and not by any means the best for flower-pieces (as the squareness of the stitches refuses to lend itself to flowing lines or gradations of colour, unless the stitches are extremely fine, and the work, in consequence, very laborious), yet it finds its especial fitness in all geometrical designs. It is also particularly well suited to heraldic subjects.

A remarkable example of the use of cross stitches exists in the borders of the Syon cope, in which the coats-of-arms are so executed. This is of the thirteenth century; and besides these cushion stitches, it exhibits all those which are grouped in the style called opus Anglicum or Anglicanum.



Many charming designs for this kind of stitch may be found in the old German pattern-books of the Renaissance (Spitzen Musterbuecher), and also in those Venetian "Corone di Vertuose Donne" lately reprinted by the Venetian publisher Organia. These are worthy of a place in every library of art.

It would seem best to place the chain stitch named "tambour" in this class, as it naturally assimilates with the plaited and cross stitches. It is so called from the drum-shaped frame of the last century in which it was usually worked.

Part 5.

OPUS PLUMARIUM (or plumage work).

The "Opus Plumarium" is one of the most ancient groups, and includes all flat stitches, of which the distinguishing mark is, that they pass each other, overlap, and blend together. "Stem," "twist," "Japanese stitch," and "long and short" or "embroidery stitch," belong to this class, to which I propose to restore its original title of plumage work.

The origin of the name is much disputed, but it is supposed to have pointed to a decoration of plumage work, and we find that feathers have been an element in artistic design from the earliest times. There were patterns in Egyptian painting which certainly had feathers for their motive (fig. 21, p. 208).

Semper, finding that birds'-skins were a recognized article for trade in China, 2205 B.C.,[333] believes that they were used as onlaid application for architectural decoration; and this is possible, for we still obtain from thence specimens of work in different materials partly onlaid in whole feathers, whereas sometimes the longer threads of the feathers are woven by the needle into the ground web. In Her Majesty's collection there are some specimens from Burmah—creatures resembling sphinxes or deformed cherubim, executed in feathers, applied on silk and outlined in gold. We have likewise from Burmah, in the Indian Museum, two peacocks[334] similarly worked; the legs and beaks are solidly raised in gold thread; and the outlines also are raised in gold, giving the appearance of enamelling. The cloisonne effect of brilliant colours, contrasted and enhanced by the separation of the gold outlines, can be seen to perfection in specimens of the beautiful Pekin jewellers' work, where the feathers are inlaid in gold ornaments for the head and in the handles of fans. Nothing but gems can be more resplendent.



These survivals help us to understand the casual mention we find in classical authors, of the works of the Plumarii, which appellation was given at last to all embroiderers who were not Phrygians.[335]

We have other glimpses of Oriental feather-work in different parts of India.[336]

The use of feathers is common in the islands of the Pacific. It is native to the Sandwich islanders; and M. Jules Remy describes the Hawaiian royal mantle, which was being constructed of yellow birds' feathers through seven consecutive reigns, and was valued in Hawaii at 5,000,000 francs. A mantle of this description is the property of Lady Brassey.

In Africa, ancient Egyptian art furnishes us with traditional feather patterns and head-dresses; and Pigafetta tells us of costumes of birds' skins, worn in the kingdom of Congo in the sixteenth century for their warmth; sea-birds' feathers being highly esteemed.[337]

In America, where birds are most splendid, the art of the feather worker was carried to the greatest perfection. It was found there by the Spaniards, and recorded in all their writings for its beauty of design and execution, and for its great value, equal to that of gold and precious stones.

Though now looked down upon, as being a semi-barbarous style of decoration, because it exists no longer except in semi-barbarous countries, we must consider feather work as a relic of a past higher civilization which has died out, rather than simply as the effort of the savage to deck himself in the brightest colours attainable.

Feather-work is a lost art, but the name of "opus plumarium" remains, and proves that it was still recognized as such in the days of Roman luxury. The name survived when the practice was all but forgotten in Europe,[338] and the art itself disused, probably, because the birds of our continent rarely have any lovely plumage to tempt the eye.

But the glory of feather-work was found again in Mexico and Peru, and the surrounding nations, in the sixteenth century—praised, exalted, demoralized, and crushed out by the cruelties of conquest. The Spaniards at first brought home beautiful garments and hangings, representing gods and heroes, all worked in feathers.[339] Under their rule the natives produced pictures agreeable to the taste of their masters. Pope Sixtus V. accepted a head of St. Francis, which had been executed by one of the ablest of the "amantecas" (the name for an artist in feathers). Sixtus was struck with surprise and admiration at the beauty and artistic cleverness of the work, and, until he had touched and examined it closely, would not believe that plumage was the only material used.

There are beautiful hangings and bed furniture at Moritzburg, near Dresden, said to have belonged to Montezuma. They were given to Augustus the Strong, King of Poland, by a king of Spain.

In the seventeenth century, and later, feather work was still an art in Mexico, the convents continuing to preserve its traditions. Bustamente says that this industry was still in operation in the beginning of our century. The Mexican Museum preserves specimens of the last three hundred years, from the time of the conquest of Mexico.

There is in the Cluny Museum, in Paris, a beautiful triptych, evidently of the sixteenth century. It is worked in feathers, with delicate outlines in fine gold thread. Nothing can exceed the tenderness and harmony of the colouring in shades of blue, and warm and cool brown tints. This is probably a survival of that lost art of Mexico which was carried on in their convents, and may have been a copy of a treasured relic of European art.

Among the few noteworthy specimens that have survived, is the mitre of St. Carlo Borromeo at Milan, described by M. F. Denis as being both artistic and beautiful. He tells us in his Appendix that even now, a tissue of feathers is woven in France, as soft and flexible as a silk damask; and rivalling the Mexican scarlet feather fabric, which the Spaniards admired so greatly. He also speaks of the inlaid feather work, invented by M. Le Normant of Rouen, in the last century, and afterwards continued in Paris by his English pupil, Mr. Levet, who sold two of his works to the then Duke of Leeds, in 1735. The first is a vase of flowers, the second a peacock, designed by M. Oudry (peintre du Roi). Both of these, framed as screens, are now at Hornby Castle.

Unfortunately feathers are, by their nature, most attractive to that greatest destroyer, next to Attila—the moth. Ghirlandajo called mosaic in marble and glass, "painting for eternity;" we may call feather work, "painting for a day."

From the essays of M. Ferdinand Denis,[340] much may be learned of the arte plumaria of the Mexicans and their neighbours of Brazil, Guatemala, Peru, and Yucatan, and the land of the Zapotecas, &c., where it was also cultivated. He says that their civilization is so mysterious that we have as yet no means of judging whence came their art.

Fergusson suggests the similarity between Central Asian and Central American art, both in architectural forms and plastic and sculptured remains. He thinks that its tradition was transmitted from Asia to America in the third and fourth centuries of our era. If so, it was an unlucky moment for the recipients, as the art of Asia, as well as that of Europe, was then at its lowest and most debased phase; perhaps, however, the more fit for the fertilization of that of a perfectly barbarous people. There is something fascinating in the suggestions on this subject in Mr. Donelly's "Atlantis;" but when conjecture is only founded on tradition, and without proof, we must not take it into serious consideration.

Having proved the universal use of feathers, it is not difficult to appreciate the causes which suggested everywhere the transfer of this decorative art to another craft, employing less perishable materials. Embroidery probably followed it closely and absorbed it throughout Asia and in Egypt; and the survivals now are only an accidental specimen, a tradition, and a name.[341]

The name "Plumarii," for the embroideries, is thus fully accounted for, and we need seek no further elucidation. It was commonly used in classical Roman times. "Opus plumarium" seems to have become the legitimate term for all needlework. The Plumarii were the embroiderers, whether their work was in wool, or thread, or in silk (at a later period),[342] with or without admixture of gold or silver (as the Argentarii were the jewellers).

The article on the word "plumarius" in Hoffman's Lexicon,[343] after describing two kinds of Plumarii, Phrygians and Babylonians, proceeds to say, "These latter, who wove garments and hangings of various colours, were called 'Plumarii;' but though this name was at first confined to craftsmen who wove patterns in the shape of feathers, in course of time the name was extended to those artists who, with the needle or by painting, embellished robes."[344]

The "opus plumarium" included, as I before said, all flat stitches; and I repeat that "feather application" was certainly its first motive; and next came the stitches that conveyed the same desired effect, though a new material was employed, fitted for the needle, which, having served its apprenticeship in "plain work," now came to the front as a decorative agent.

Painting with the needle began with an attempt to model with it; the lay of stitches being so arranged as to give the whole effect of light and shadow, so as to delineate the forms without changing the shades of the material used. I give on the opposite page some Japanese birds, which will explain what I mean. The stitches are so intelligently placed as absolutely to give the forms of the birds imitated. They represent plumage, and a more artistic representation cannot be imagined. (Pl. 43.)

The same stitch which we find prevailing in China and Japan as plumage work, is employed in embroidering flowers. Here satin, stem, and plumage stitches are blended together, and excellent decorative effects are produced; but the texture of flowers is not to be imitated, as is that of the plumage of birds. "Satin" stitch is a more restricted form of plumage stitch; and "stem" is another variety of these flat stitches, very useful in its place. I therefore have assigned the name of "plumage stitch" to that hitherto called "embroidery" or "long and short" stitches; and I give the term "plumage work" to include all the "flat" stitches.

Practically, it is allowed that these flat stitches, especially the plumage stitch, give most scope for freedom in needlework, as they are laid on at once, and according to the inspiration of the worker, and may cover the outline and efface it. The stitches are not counted, and have more of the nature of touch than any others, as their length, thickness, and closeness may be varied at will. The artist's design thus admits of interpretation according to the taste and feeling of the needlewoman.



Part 6.

OPUS CONSUTUM (or cut work).

This is "Patchwork," or "Applique" ("inlaid" and "onlaid"). Vasari calls it "Di commesso," and says that Botticelli invented it for the use of Church banners, as being much more effective than any other style of work, or even than painting, as the outlines remained firm (non si stinguano), and were not affected by the weather (as in painted cloths) and were visible on both sides of the banner. Botticelli drew with his own hand the baldachino of Or San Michele, and the embroideries on a frieze carried in procession by the monks of Santa Maria Novella; he died 1515. Perhaps he may have revived the art of application in his own day.

There are, however, much earlier examples of patchwork, of which the first and most remarkable is the Egyptian funeral tent of Queen Isi-em-Kheb, mother-in-law of Shishak, who besieged and took Jerusalem three or four years after the death of Solomon, B.C. 980. It may be described as a mosaic, or patchwork of prodigious size, made of thousands of pieces of gazelles' skins, dyed, and neatly sewn together with threads of colour to match, resembling the stitching of a glove, the outer edges bound with a cord of twisted pink leather, sewn on with stout pink thread (pl. 44). The colours are described as being wonderfully preserved, when it is remembered that they are nearly as old as the Trojan War; though perhaps their preservation is less surprising than that the flowers wreathed about several royal mummies of the same period should have shown their colours and forms when the cases were first opened, so as to be recognized as blue larkspur, yellow mimosa, and a red Abyssinian flower, massed closely together on the foundation of a strong leaf cut in zigzags. Among the flowers lay a dead wasp, whose worthless little form and identity were as perfectly preserved as those of the mighty monarch on whose bosom it had completed its short existence. The tent itself consists of a centre or flat top, divided down the middle, and covered over one half with pink and yellow rosettes on a blue ground; on the other half are six large vultures, each surrounded with a hieroglyphic text which is really an epitaph. The side flaps are adorned first with some narrow bands of colour; then with a fringe pattern; then with a row of broad panels, red, green, and yellow, with a device or picture and inscription in the two other colours; on this border there are kneeling gazelles, each with a pink Abyssinian lotus blossom hanging to its collar. The rest of the side flaps and the whole of the front and back flaps are composed of large squares, alternately pink and green. This, for its antiquity, its style, its stitchery, materials, and colours, is a most interesting work of early art, and an example of the perfection to which it had attained. It is remarkable how much variety of effect has been produced with only four colours, by the artistic manner of placing and contrasting them. To our more advanced taste, however, the whole effect of the contrasting colours is inharmonious and gaudy, though certainly striking and typical.[345]

Another piece of Egyptian application, from the Museum at Turin, is a pretty leaf pattern cut out in red stuff, laid on a white ground, and worked down with a darker outline of the same colour.[346]





We have an instance of ancient "application" of about 600 years later, Greek in its beauty of design and execution. Alas! we can only ascertain, from tattered fragments taken out of a tomb in the Crimea, that it was parseme with figures on horseback or in chariots. The border is very beautiful. Compare the fragments of which we have obtained a copy with the mantle of Demeter, from a Greek vase, and you will perceive how the styles correspond (Pl. 16, Fig. 23). The ground material is of the finest woven wool, of a deep violet or purple colour, enriched with application of another fine woollen fabric of a most brilliant green, worked down, outlined and embroidered in white, black, and gold-coloured wool, apparently in stem stitches.[347] The accompanying illustration gives the effect and general design of the outer border only, in which the applied leaf is worked down in red, gold, and white.

It is much to be regretted that the centre of the mantle is so tattered and discoloured that it is impossible to do more than ascertain that the design that is embroidered on it consists of figures on horseback or in chariots, in spirited attitudes. The second and broader border is to be found (pl. 17).



"Opus consutum" cannot in any sense perhaps be the name of a stitch or stitches. But it applies to a peculiar style of embroidery employing certain stitches. It is the term given to all work cut out of plain or embroidered materials, and applied by "working down" to another material as grounding. It includes all raised and stuffed application in silk, woollen, and metal thread work. It has been given to all work in which the scissors are active agents, whether in cutting out the outlines or in incising the pattern, as in much of the linen and muslin embroideries of our day, now called "Madeira work," of which a great deal was made in the first part of the century by English ladies who designed and collected patterns from each other, and gave the produce of their industry as gifts to their friends for collars, cuffs, and trimmings.[348]

"Cut work" is named by Chaucer, and is constantly to be found in inventories from his time to the beginning of the last century. At Coire, in the Grisons, is a very beautiful chasuble, of which the orphrey is of the school of the elder Holbein or Lucas Cranach, applied and raised so as to form a high relief. The figures are covered with satin and embroidered. The chasuble itself is of fine Saracenic silk, woven with golden inscriptions in broad stripes. The colours are brown, crimson, and gold.



In the later Middle Ages, a good deal of this work was executed in Germany for wall hangings; figures were cut out in different materials, and embroidered down and finished by putting in the details in various stitches. As art they are generally a failure, being more gaudy than beautiful. This, however, is not necessarily the case, for there is at the Hotel Cluny a complete suite of hangings of the time of Francis the First, partly applied and partly embroidered, which are beautiful in design and colouring, especially the fruit and trophies in the borders.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries cut work was much employed in Italy for large flowered arabesque designs, commonly in velvet or silk, making columnar wall hangings, which are often very effective; giving the rooms an architectural decoration, without interfering with the arrangement of works of art, pictures, statues and cabinets, placed in front of them. Besides, it was supposed that the utmost effect of richness was thus accomplished with the least labour, and very large spaces and very high walls covered, without losing anything of beauty by distance, as must be the case when the work's highest merit is in the delicacy of the stitches and the details of form. (Pl. 45.)

The Earl of Beauchamp has inherited a most beautiful suite of hangings of "applique work;" silks of many kinds are laid on a white brocade ground with every possible variety of stitch, forming richly and gracefully designed patterns; and showing to what cut work can aspire.

A great deal of "opus consutum" has been done in the School of Art Needlework, in the way of restoration of old embroideries. Here may be seen copies of different models of many periods; amongst other British specimens, part of a bed at Drumlanrig, in which James I. slept. In this work the application is cut out, raised and stuffed, and "couched" with cords, and the whole thing is as stiff, strong, conventional, and enduring as if it were a piece of upholstery that was carpentered yesterday, instead of being needlework of at least 250 years ago.

One of the most remarkable large works of this style that exists was shown in 1881, at the South Kensington Museum, during the Spanish Exhibition.[349] It was of the kind called "on the stamp." This was a landscape seen between columns wreathed with flowers and creepers. In the foreground couched a stag, the size of life—a wonderful reproduction of the hide of the creature in stitches. The relief is so high that the columns appear to be circular by the shadows they throw; and the stag is stuffed so as to be raised about six inches. The work is superb, and causes pleasure as well as wonder; and yet, in spite of the beauty of the design, and the richness of the materials—gold, silver, silk, and wool profusely used—it is a divergence from the legitimate art of embroidery, and is simply the attempt of the needlewoman to combine again the arts of sculpture and painting with the help of so inadequate an implement as the needle. Therefore, except as being a marvellous and beautiful curiosity, it is a failure; it is not art.[350]

Practically, cut work is the best mode of arriving at splendid effects by uniting rich and varied tissues.[351] The Italian curiosity vendors know this well, and often cut up the remnants and rags of rich stuffs, old faded silks, and scraps of gold and silver tissues, and with them copy fine old designs, and sell them as authentic specimens of such and such a date.

I was once requested to give an opinion as to the date of a curtain border bought in Italy, and on consideration I gave the following verdict: "The design is of the sixteenth century; the applied velvet and gold cord, of the seventeenth century; the brocaded silk ground, eighteenth century; the thread with which the whole was worked—machine-made silk thread (English)—middle of nineteenth century." The whole effect was excellent, and very antique.

This art of "application" is the distinctive part of the "opus consutum," and it is the best and most economical method for restoration of old embroideries, of which the grounding material is generally worn out long before the stitches laid upon it. Much beautiful work has thus been rescued from annihilation, and restored to use from its long imprisonment in the boxes and drawers of the garret and store-room. But it is cruel to transfer historical or typical works, and so puzzle the artist and the historian.

It is so troublesome to embroider on velvet or plush, or gold tissues, that application is the easiest and most effective mode of dealing with these fabrics.[352] The outlines laid down in cord have the best effect, while binding the edges and securing them from fraying, and it is almost certain that the eye receives most pleasure, in flat art, from a defined outline, which satisfies it; where there are no cast shadows, it lifts the work from the background, and separating the colours, it enhances their beauty. It would appear, however, as a rule, that either black or gold metal should invariably be employed, because they do not interfere with any colour they approach. White is distracting and aggressive. The Greeks sometimes used gold colour instead of gold, as we see in the mantle from the Crimea already referred to; but this is not nearly so agreeable to the eye as pure gold.

A great deal of modern "opus consutum," or application cut work, has been done in Constantinople of late years. The designs in general, are not artistic; nor are the colouring and materials very commendable. The onlaid material is, in general, sewn down with chain stitches, and cut out afterwards.

Part 7.

LACE.—OPUS FILATORIUM OR ARANEUM.

Mrs. Palliser says that from the earliest times the art of lace-making has been so mixed up with that of needlework, that it is impossible to enter upon the one without naming the other. This is, in fact, what she has done, showing the intimate connection between the two in her charming work on lace, where much information about embroideries in general, may be found in the introduction.[353]

M. Blanc also considers that there is but a slight transition between embroidery and guipure, which he says was the first lace.[354] As all the earliest specimens and designs for guipure were Venetian, the art was, therefore, probably an Italian invention, though an Oriental origin has sometimes been attributed to it. The objection to this last theory is that we find no ancient specimens, and no modern continuation of such work in the East.

The word "guipure" is a stumbling-block. It has been applied to many forms in the varying art of lace-making; which same variableness has caused its nomenclature to assume the terms belonging to other textile arts where they approach or touch each other, (as in netting, fringes, or embroideries). The nearest approach to laces before the thirteenth century was more in the nature of what we now call guimp.[355]

Embroidery differs from lace, in that it is worked on already woven tissues; whereas lace is manufactured at once, both ground and design.[356] But the link between the two is not missing.

In the twelfth century they worked "opus filatorium," which consisted of embroidery with the needle on linen, of which half the threads had been drawn out, and the remainder were worked into a net by knotting them into groups, then dividing, and knotting them again.[357] There is a piece of work described in an old catalogue quoted by Rock. "St. Paul's, London, had a cushion covered with knotted thread: Pulvinar copertum de albo filo nodato." Here lace and embroidery touch each other.[358] Sir Gardiner Wilkinson notices some early Egyptian work in the Louvre as "a piece of white network pattern, each mesh containing an irregular cubic figure." This sounds much like lace-work.

It may be fairly asserted that the term "embroidery" embraces the craft of lace-making, as almost all ancient and much modern lace is simple embroidery, and formed entirely by the needle.

Some kinds of lace, however, are made by plaiting and twisting the threads attached to bobbins round pins which are previously arranged in the holes of a pattern, pricked on parchment or glazed paper.[359] The original motive and idea of lace is a net. The patterns called by the ancients "de fundata," are netted designs meshed. You will see them constantly in Egyptian and Greek art, both in wall painting and textile decoration. Homer speaks of golden cauls, and so does Isaiah,[360] as adorning women's heads. They also mention nets of flax.

The capitals of the brazen columns adorned with "nets of chequer work" in Solomon's Temple are very curious.[361] And the author of "Letters from Italy, 1776," tells of the garment of a statue at Portici, edged with a border resembling fine netting. Egyptian robes of state appear to have been sometimes trimmed with an edging of a texture between lace and fringe.[362]

Lace has been made of many materials in many ways. We may instance "passementerie," made with bobbins (bone lace), with or without pins, or with the needle only, by hand. The materials have been gold, silver, silk, thread (these two last white or coloured), the fibres of plants, and human hair.[363] A lace called "yak" is made of wool or hair.

Bone laces in gold and silver, or the two mixed and interchanged, are continually mentioned in the inventories of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. Bed hangings, chair and cushion covers, and table cloths were constantly trimmed with gold and silver bone lace, and fringes of the same.[364] Laces in coloured silks were made in Spain and the Balearic Isles late in the last century.[365]

In 1542, a sumptuary law was passed in Venice, forbidding the metal laces embroidered in silk to be wider than "due dita," i.e. about two inches. This paternal interference in the details of life is truly Venetian. It was intended to "protect the nobles and citizens from injuring themselves and setting a bad example."

Perhaps this strict rule was relaxed in favour of crowned heads and royal personages; for there is at Ashridge, among the relics of Queen Elizabeth's enforced visit, a toilet-cover of red and gold striped silk, with a trimming of lace, four inches broad, of Venice gold and silver lace embroidered in coloured silk. Specimens of these laces are rare, owing to the intrinsic value of the metal. We must suppose the origin of these golden trimmings to belong to a very early period. A piece of gold wire lace guimp was lately found in a tomb near Wareham, and is supposed, with reason, to be Scandinavian.[366]

M. Blanc describes lace as a "treillage" or network, and says it is made in three ways. You may complete the ground first, and then work the pattern with the needle. This he calls lace "pure et simple;" and he considers that it differs from guipure in that the latter consists of flowers and arabesques worked separately, and then connected with bars, lines, or meshes. This guipure is the second mode of lace-making.[367] The third is by machinery; but this has the inherent defect of all machine-made fabrics, to a practised eye; i.e. a certain rigidity and coldness in the exactly repeated forms, in which the human touch is wanting. It is curious how in art, even a "pentimento" is valuable, recalling the hand that erred as well as created; the attention that strayed, or reconsidered the design.[368]

M. Blanc, speaking of the beauty of point d'Alencon, praises it especially as being entirely needlework. He names the different modes of lace-making, and judges their merits. Of needle-made lace he says: "And the value of this lace not only arises from its representing a considerable amount of labour, but also because nothing can replace in human estimation the fabrics produced by a man's, and still less by a woman's handicraft. However the hand may have been restrained by the necessity of faithfully following, on green parchment, the designs imagined and traced by another person, there is always, even in copying an outline, an individuality, an imperceptible deviation to the right or to the left, above or below the tracing, which impresses on the design the accent of strength or weakness, of indecision or determination."[369] I would add, of intelligence or stupidity; of knowledge or ignorance.

This is not the first time, and will certainly not be the last, that I shall have sought to impress on the needlewoman the fact that her individuality cannot fail to be strongly marked in her work; and I would urge her to carry out the suggestions that her experience and her taste afford her, while seeking to render faithfully the original motive of the designer. In lace-making, as in all art, the interest and the life, as it were, is imparted to each specimen by the attention and thought bestowed upon it.

Mrs. Palliser shows us, by her beautiful illustrations, how much variety may be given to designs for lace-making, which have changed with each period of contemporary art, and are markedly distinctive of their nationalities.

Mr. A. Cole's lectures on lace, his volume of photographs, and M. Seguin's valuable work, are full of information.

M. Urbani de Gheltof's "Technical History of Venetian Laces," translated into English by Lady Layard, is a beautiful little book and a worthy imitation of the ancient lace-books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.[370]

The subject has been so thoroughly discussed by adepts in connection with its revival as a local industry in its original cradle, that I will confine myself to a few observations on its history and its place in decorative art.

Fringes, Knotting, Netting, Knitting, Crochet, Tatting, and Lace-making, are all parts of the same branch of ornamental needlework. They are all "trimmings," in the sense of being decorative edges to more solid materials. They are not available as coverings for warmth or decency; but they serve to give the grace of mystery to the object they drape or veil. They soften the outlines and the colours beneath them, while they permit them to peep through their meshes. They are hardly to be included in what is called high art, having more affinity with grace, refinement and coquetry, than with aesthetic culture or noble thought.

This tendency in lace work may be the reason that the masculine mind does not, in general, appreciate these lovely textures, but rather despises them (even when the designs are beautiful and ingenious), as being flimsy and deficient in honest intention; whereas women have always greatly prized them for their delicacy and refinement, and their great value, on account of the time, trouble, and eyesight expended upon them. Their knowledge of stitches also enables them to appreciate their variety, and the taste shown in their selection and arrangement for carrying out each design.

Lace stitches are almost innumerable.[371] Upwards of a hundred are named, and their variations are endless. But a volume would not suffice us for entering into the details of the craft; many of its stitches have been imported into embroideries in gold, silk, and crewels; and such adaptations are always allowable, provided the effect is good.

We have every reason to believe that the claims of Venice as the first and original school of lace-making have been satisfactorily proved.[372] Genoa, Florence, Milan, especially the last,[373] followed suit. Germany, France,[374] and Spain soon started their schools; but Lady Layard believes that Spain received all her inspiration and the greater part of her laces from Venice, which likewise sent teachers to France and to Brussels—or rather, we may say, had many first-class workwomen decoyed from her manufactories to assist in starting rival industries in other countries.[375]

The first pattern-books were printed in Venice in the sixteenth century; and these "Corone di belle e virtuose donne," as they are sometimes entitled,[376] were imitated in France and Germany.

Venice was proud of her industry, and of the noble ladies who fostered it. It is recorded in the "Virtu in Giocco of Giovanna Palazzi" that Giovanna Dandolo, or "la Dandola," (wife of the Doge Malapiero,) was the first patroness of Venice laces. She also fostered the art of printing in Venice, and is spoken of as a "principessa di gran' spirito, ne di private fortune," and her memory is cherished in connection with these proofs of her patriotism. We hear also that Morosin or Marosin, wife of the Doge Marin Grimani, patronized Venetian lace-making. Her forewoman, or maestra, was a certain Cattina Gardin, and through her the art was settled at Burano, where it has been so lately revived.

At the Cathedral of Burano, is kept in the sacristy, perhaps the finest existing piece of artistic lace of the sixteenth century. It contains many groups of figures from the history of our Lord, beautiful both in design and execution, worked in "Punti Fogliami," and filled in with exquisite tracery. This was the border of an antipendium.

Mrs. Palliser laments the extinction of the art in Venice, and says that but one woman of the old craft had survived; but her elegy was premature, as that old woman, by name Cencia Scarpariola, has lived to see hundreds of girls at Burano reviving all the old traditions, having learnt from her the secrets of the "mestiere," or "mystery." Under the patronage of the Princess Margherita, now Queen of Italy, and with the active help and superintendence of Countess Adriana Marcello and Princess Giovanelli, most beautiful laces are now made in every old point, French and Flemish, as well as Venetian. Pezzi, merli, and merletti are executed in the different styles which include all lace-making, and of which we here give a list from M. de Gheltof's book:—

Net lace. Cut lace. Open lace. Flowered lace. Knotted lace. Darning or square netting. Venice point. Burano point. Drawn lace.[377] Embroidered linen.[378]

The price of these laces is very high, but not beyond their value when we consider the vast amount of skilled labour bestowed on them. We are often told that old lace is cheaper than new, as an absurd fact, because the antiquity of lace is supposed to add to its value. Yes, but principally as an object of archaeological interest; whereas that which is being made now is supporting by its daily wage the needlewoman and her family, and perhaps providing for her old age; and as the strain on the eye is very heavy, many lace-workers early in life lose their sight, at least for all the purposes of their craft.[379] For these reasons we cannot say that the prices required for such luxurious trimmings are unreasonable. Zanon da Udine gives us an idea of how costly they were in old times. He says that Giuseppe Berardi, a lace merchant in Venice, made a profit of 75,000 francs on a commission for a set of lace bed-hangings for the wedding of Joseph II., Emperor of Germany, which proves the high prices paid for the new laces of their day.

Blond laces, which take their turn occasionally as fashionable trimmings, veils, and Spanish mantillas, are so called from their original Venetian name, "merletti biondi," pale laces. De Gheltof derives this appellation from the celebrated collar of Louis Quatorze, and fancies it was made of the fair hair of the workers; but this is only vague conjecture. The term was applied in the seventeenth century to laces in silk, gold, and silver—never to thread laces. I confess I do not find the reason for the name, but accept De Gheltof's information that it was given by the authority of the magistrates of Mercanzia in 1759.

This is but a very slight sketch of the history of lace. Venice being its birthplace, and likewise the busy scene of its rehabilitation, I have lingered over its school, and left but little space for the discussion of those of Spain, Flanders, Belgium, and France. But these have been thoroughly investigated, and their individual merits are well appreciated, both as antique and modern dress decoration.

I have already said that the lace schools in France were instituted by Colbert, who placed one at Auxerre, under the especial care of his brother, the bishop of that city. Louis Quatorze made it one of his splendid caprices, and not only set the example, but forced the fashion into this luxurious and extravagant channel.

In Spain, lace was made to look its best by being worn stretched over the great hoops of the "Guard-Infante;" and the fashion spread all over Europe. The white laces, resembling carved ivory or those in gold and silver, which remind one of solid jewellers' work, when spread over the surface of these fortified outworks, guarding from all approach the persons of the Infantas of Spain, assume in the portraits by Velasquez, a dignity which is in keeping with their value. The splendid designs show brilliantly on a background of scarlet, rose colour, or black silk; and that which, hanging loosely, looks only tawdry and ragged, had a magnificent effect when thus displayed.

For ecclesiastical purposes, these grand solid laces seem most appropriate, being effective in large spaces, and easily seen at a distance, hanging over the edge of the altar, as a border to the linen cloths, or finishing the white alb of the officiating priest.

One cannot but agree with M. Blanc, who points out that each piece of lace had its intention, and that a fashionable ball-dress trimmed with the edging of an antique altar-cloth in loops, is in false taste, to say no worse of the misappropriation.

Though we have had no schools of lace in England (unless we can call our imitative industries schools), we have samplers of the time of Queen Elizabeth, and down to the middle of the last century, showing that drawn lace and cut lace were regularly taught, probably as an accomplishment, by Italians. The laces of Devonshire and the Isle of Wight (called Honiton) form a group totally distinct from those of Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, and Oxfordshire, which last are very simple cushion bobbin-laces.

From the sixteenth century English ladies have, for their amusement, made cut laces. Still, we must confess we have no national style of lace, and the only enduring ones have been those of France and Belgium, which have always kept the lead since their establishment, though fluctuating in design with the varying fashions of each epoch. Perhaps the reason of their longevity is that they have followed always the taste of their day. That of our time being decidedly archaeological, ancient patterns are now the most successful.

There is a kind of embroidery darned-work, called "Limerick lace," which is said to be only made in Ireland, and being partly machine-made, is not pure lace, and therefore little esteemed. Very fine thread laces have been produced at Irish work schools; but no commercial result has followed. Clever imitations of Venice point have come from Ireland lately, called "raised crochet." This is a novelty, and it is extremely fine and beautiful work.



The Exhibition of Irish Lace in London (June, 1883), shows how widespread have been the efforts of Irish ladies to employ the peculiar genius of the sister island for delicate work with the needle, which has always been shown in their beautiful embroideries on muslin and cambric. It appears that every kind of lace, except, perhaps, Brussels point, has been made in Ireland within the last 180 years; but as in each case the effort was always that of one individual woman, the school fell away when she died.

The names of these ladies are now worthily recorded in the official catalogue of the exhibition, with photographs of the specimens produced under their superintendence and care. Perhaps a permanent industry may crown, however late, their exertions to help the women of Ireland.

Part 8.

TAPESTRY—OPUS PECTINEUM.

It is necessary to define precisely what is meant by the word "tapestry."[380] The term has been applied to all hangings, and so caused confusion between those that are embroidered with a design, on a plain or brocaded woven material, and those which are inwoven with the design from the first.[381] This latter was called in classical language, "opus pectineum," because it was woven with the help of a comb (the "slay"),[382] to push the threads tight between each row of stitches; and the individual stitches were put in with a sort of a needle, or by the fingers only, and laid on the warp. It was thus practised by the Egyptians, by the Persians, Indians, and Peruvians; and in Egypt was often finished by embroidery. (Pl. 46.) In Egyptian tombs we have evidence of their tapestry, from the mural paintings representing men and women weaving pictures in upright looms. The comb which served to push the threads together after the stitches were laid in is sometimes found in the weaver's tomb.

We have, in the British Museum, pieces of "opus pectineum" from Saccarah, in Egypt; and also fragments from a Peruvian tomb, of barbarous design, but the weaving is equal to the Egyptian; and both resemble the Gobelins weaving of to-day. Whence came the craft of the Peruvians?

Tapestry is woven in two ways, by a high or by a low-warp loom (haute-lisse or basse-lisse), vertical or horizontal. The "slay" is the implement which is peculiar to the craft. I shall not enter into any description of the mode of working the looms, as this has been thoroughly well done by masters of the art.[383] But I would call attention to the Frontispiece, copied from a Greek vase, where Penelope is portrayed sitting by her haute-lisse frame. I also refer the reader to the illustration from the Rheims tapestries, in which a mediaeval artist shows the Blessed Virgin weaving at one that is horizontal or "basse-lisse." (Pl. 47.)



For the best information I have been able to obtain regarding tapestry weaving, I must acknowledge my indebtedness to M. Albert Castel's "Bibliotheque des Merveilles."[384] He has given great care to the consideration of this subject, and has collected good evidences to prove his conclusions, which I willingly accept en bloc. Of course he has chiefly dealt with the French branch of the art, and with the Flemish, from which it immediately descends. He begins, however, by quoting Pliny, to prove the antiquity of weaving, and gives a verse of Martial's to this effect: "Thou owest this work to the land of Memphis, where the slay of the Nile has vanquished the needle of Babylon."[385]

Homer makes Helen weave the story of the siege of Troy; this may have been partly embroidered; and there are some pieces of woven tapestry introduced most ingeniously into the web of a linen shirt or garment, of which the sleeve is in the Egyptian department of the British Museum, proving that figures were pictured by weaving quite as early as the date of Troy, and unmistakably finished with the needle (Plate 18); at any rate, as early as the days of Homer. Arachne's web was interwoven with figures. She and Minerva rivalled each other in ingenious design and perfect execution. The description of the beautiful hangings they wove, the glorious colours with their tenderly graduated tints, and the graceful borders, appear to be almost prophetic of the highest efforts of the looms of the Gobelins.[386][387] Arachne's name is derived from the Hebrew word for weaving, "Arag."