Under the rule of the dukes of Burgundy in the 15th century art in the southern provinces of the Netherlands prospered greatly, and able artists were found to meet the wishes of those munificent rulers. The local schools of painting, which flourished under their patronage, appear to have very considerably influenced the embroiderers' art. Great care and pains were given to reproduce as accurately as possible the painted cartoon or picture which served as the model. The heads are individualized, and the folds of the draperies are laboriously worked out in detail. The masonry of buildings, the veinings of marble, and the architectural enrichments are often represented with careful fidelity, and landscape backgrounds are shown in every detail. As in the case of the tapestries of the Netherlands--the finest which the world has seen--there can be no doubt that patrons of art and donors, when requiring embroideries to be made, secured the services of eminent painters for the designs. There are many examples of such careful work. A set of vestments known as the _ornement de la Toison d'Or_, now in the Hof-museum at Vienna, is embroidered in the most minute manner with sacred subjects and figures of saints and angels. The stiff disposal of many of these figures, within flattened hexagons arranged in zones, is not pleasing, but the needlework is most remarkable for skill and carefulness. They are of 15th-century work. A cope belonging to the second half of that century was given to the cathedral of Tournay by Guillaume Fillatre, abbot of St Bertin at St Omer, and bishop of Tournay (d. 1473). It is now in the museum there. Upon the orphreys and hood are represented the seven Works of Mercy. The body of the cope, of plain red velvet, is powdered with stags' heads and martlets (the heraldic bearings of the bishop); between the antlers of the stags is worked in each case the initial letter of the bishop's name, and the morse is embroidered with his arms. Some panels of embroidery, once decorating an altar in the abbey of Grimbergen, and now at Brussels, illustrate the best class of Flemish needlework in the 16th century. The scenes are taken from the Gospel: the marriage at Cana, Christ in the house of the Pharisee, Christ in the house of Zacchaeus, the Last Supper, and the supper at Emmaus. In the museum at Bern there are some embroideries of great historic and artistic interest, found in the tent of Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, after his defeat at Granson in 1476. They include some armorial panels and two tabards or heralds' coats. A tabard of the following century, with the royal arms of Spain in applied work, and most probably of Flemish origin, is preserved in the archaeological museum at Ghent.