Textile Fabrics: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Church-vestments, Dresses, Silk Stuffs, Needlework and Tapestries, forming that Section of the MuseumRock, Daniel
History
Textile Fabrics: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Church-vestments, Dresses, Silk Stuffs, Needlework and Tapestries, forming that Section of the Museum
Rock, Daniel
Art objects -- England -- London -- Catalogs; Textile fabrics
To a Surrey, for winning the day at Flodden Field, King Henry VIII.
gave the tressured lion of the royal arms of Scotland to be borne upon
the Howard bend as arms of augmentation. In after years, the same
Henry VIII. cut off a Surrey’s head because he bore, as his House had
borne from the time of one of their forefathers, Thomas de Brotherton,
Edward I.’s son, the arms of the Confessor, the use of which had been
confirmed to it by Richard II. If, like Scrope, Surrey had bethought
himself of vestments, even of the few we have with the royal arms upon
them, and assumed by other English noblemen, perhaps those liturgic
embroideries might have stood him in some good stead to save his life.
Had the poor aged Countess of Salisbury been heard, she might have
shamed her kinsman the king not to take her life for using upon her
church furniture emblems, then as now, employed upon such appliances
throughout all Christendom.
For the genealogist, the lawyer, the herald, the historian, such of
these old liturgical garments as, like the Syon cope, bear armorial
shields embroidered upon them, will have a peculiar value, and a more
than ordinary interest. Those emblazonries not only recall the names of
men bound up for ever with this land’s history, but may again serve,
as they once before have served, to furnish the lost link in a broken
pedigree, or unravel an entangled point before a law tribunal.
SECTION X.--BOTANY AND ZOOLOGY.
By all those for whom, among other allurements drawing them on in their
studies of Botany and Zoology, one is the gratification they feel in
learning how many of the subjects belonging to these two sections of
the natural sciences were known, and how they used to be depicted
during the middle ages, this large collection of textiles figured so
often with birds, beasts and flowers, will be heartily welcomed.
Our Zoological Society prides itself, and in justice, with treating
the Londoners with the first sight of a live giraffe; but here its
members themselves may behold, Nos. 8591-91A, p. 224; 8599, p. 228,
the earliest known portrait of that curious quadruped sketched upon
Sicilian silks of the fourteenth century.
We once listened to a discussion between English sportsmen about the
travels of the pheasant from its native home by the banks of the river
Phasis at Colchis, and the time when it reached this island. Both
parties agreed in believing its coming hither to have been somewhat
late. Be that as it may, our country gentlemen will see their favourite
bird figured here, No. 1325, p. 60.
About the far-famed hunting cheetahs of India, we have heard, and
still hear much; and on pieces of silk from eastern looms, in this
collection, they are often to be seen figured.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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