In painted banners, usually of silk, the material is strained in a frame, by means of laces passed through tapes sewn to the edges, and the design being drawn or pounced on it, is carefully gone over with size, which fills the interstices of the silk, and when dry forms an excellent surface for the subsequent gilding and painting in oils. There can be no doubt, however, that embroidery, now that it has so brilliantly revived, is the method of all others in which modern banners should be executed, and if this were recognized there need be no lack of opportunity. Among others the trumpet banners of the Sheriffs who every year are appointed to the respective counties, are used to display their arms during the year of office, and afterwards, their official life being ended, are frequently made into screens for domestic use. It is in this connexion that their method of production becomes of especial importance. Their somewhat tawdry and incongruous appearance is quickly felt, and they soon disappear into the retirement that they merit. The banners of the City Companies would better decorate their venerable halls if fashioned in beautiful needlework, and when they were carried in the procession on Lord Mayor’s Day would impart a gleam of real splendour into that properties-in-daylight pageant. The painted banners could still serve for bad weather flags. [Illustration: FIG. 232.--Bed Cover, Flemish Work. Victoria and Albert Museum.] In modern heraldic embroidery the design is the weak point, but improvement would certainly follow the study of good early work and also of good examples of other decorative methods if they were intelligently adapted to the materials employed. The purpose and character of the object must influence the work, and considerations of weight and substance affect the making of a banner, which is to wave and flow, at least to some extent that would not need to be insisted on in a framed panel. Not that the treatment need be wholly flat, like the diagrammatic shield of an early roll of arms, for it may well have such definition of the charges as are seen on the Black Prince’s surcoat; also the complete form of an object may be sufficiently suggested without the employment of methods more suitable to another material. Thus, it is not particularly difficult to indicate that a thing is round without making it as round as possible. [Illustration: FIG. 233.--Design for Lace. Arms of Frederick II, King of Denmark. From the pattern-book of the Duchess of Brunswick.] LACE.--Although heraldry does not appear to have been so extensively practised in lace as in other forms of needlework, it is still used to a considerable extent, and generally as a device that is introduced as a personal detail in a large pattern.