Damask, gold, silk, and thread; ground, dull purple; design, two broad horizontal bands, the first charged with a hound, green, collared, armed, and langued white, lying down with head upturned to a large swan in gold, with foliage all about them; on the second, a dog chasing a hart, both in gold, and between two cable ornaments in gold, and two scrolls of roving foliage, in light green pricked with white. Sicilian, late 14th century. 18 inches by 12 inches. The beautiful and boldly-drawn pattern of these beasts and birds in pairs, and succeeding each other, is not duly honoured by the materials used in it; the quantity of thread is large, and the gold of the poorest sort. 1300. Silk Damask; ground, blue; design, in yellow, a net-work done in ovate geometrical scrolls, and the meshes filled in with geometrical lozenges, and others showing an ornamentation of singular occurrence, somewhat like the heraldic nebule. Lucca, early 15th century, 10½ inches by 7½ inches. After a pattern that seldom is to be found on mediæval stuffs. 1301. Silk and Gold Damask; ground, bright crimson silk; design, in gold, fruit of the pomegranate, mingled with flowers and leaves of another plant. South of Spain, 15th century. 9 inches by 8¾ inches. At a distance this stuff must have shown well, but its materials are not of the first class; though lively in tone, the silk is poor, and its gold made of that thin gilt parchment cut into flat shreds, like other examples here--Nos. 8590, 8601, 8639, &c. 1302. Silk and Gold Damask; ground, fawn-coloured faded from crimson, in silk; design, large eagles perched in pairs, with a radiating sun between them, and beneath the rays dogs in pairs, running with heads turned back and looking on the foliage separating them, all in gold. Sicilian, 14th century. 17 inches by 8½ inches. The fine and spirited pattern of this piece is now very indistinct, owing to the bad colour of the ground, which has so much faded, and the inferior quality of the gold upon the thread. 1303. Silk Damask; ground, a rose-coloured tint; pattern, in a dull tone of the same, broad strap-work, in reticulations enclosing a circular conventional floriation. Moresco-Spanish, 14th century. 6 inches by 5½ inches. The tone of the colour has changed from its first brightness, and the stuff is of a very thin texture. 1304. Silk and Gold Damask; ground, crimson silk much faded; design, harts collared and flying eagles amid foliage, all in gold. Sicilian, 14th century. 2 feet 8 inches by 1 foot.