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
This frontal is said to have been brought from Orvieto; but in it
there is nothing about the celebrated relic kept in the very beautiful
and splendid shrine in that fine cathedral. So very worn is this piece
of embroidery, that several panels of it are quite indistinct. It may
be, however, distinguished into three parts--the centre and the two
sides. In the first we have, in nine compartments, the Annunciation,
the Nativity, the coming of the Wise Men, the Blessed Virgin Mary,
with St. Joseph, going to the temple and carrying in a basket her
pair of turtle-doves, which she is giving to Simeon; the Last Supper;
our Lord being taken in the garden; the Crucifixion; the burial; the
Resurrection of our Saviour; on the right side, the legend of St.
Christopher, mixed up with that of St. Julian Hospitaler; on the left
are passages from the life of St. Ubaldo, bishop of Gubbio in the
middle of the 12th century. In the first square is the saint mildly
forgiving the master-mason who carried the new walls of the city
across a vineyard belonging to St. Ubaldo, and, when reproved about
the wrong thus done to private property, knocked down the saint; in
the second we behold the saint at the bedside of a converted sinner,
whose soul, just breathed forth, an angel is about to waft to heaven;
in the third we have before us the saint himself, upon his dying bed,
surrounded by friends, one of whom--a lady--is throwing up both her
arms in great affright at the sudden appearance of a possessed man who
has cast himself upon his knees at the bedfoot, and, with one hand
outstretched upon the bed, is freed from the evil spirit, which is
flying off over head in shape of a devil-imp; in the last the saint
is being drawn in an open bier, by two oxen, to church for burial,
followed by a crowd, among whom is his deacon.
From the subjects on this much-decayed frontal, figured, as it is,
with the life of St. Ubaldo, known for his love of the poor, his
kindness to wayfarers and pilgrims, and his healing of the sick, as
well as with the legends of St. Julian and St. Christopher, remarkable
for the same virtues, we may infer that this ecclesiastical appliance
hung at the altar of some poor house or hospital, in by-gone days, at
Orvieto.
4643.
Band of Gimp Openwork, crimson and gold thread. German (?), 18th
century. 1 foot 10 inches by 1 inch.
Evidently for ladies’ use, but how employed is not so clear; from a
little steel ring sewed to it, perhaps it may have been worn hanging
from the hair behind the neck.
4644.
Cradle-quilt; ground, green satin, embroidered with armorial bearings,
the four Evangelists, and flowers, all in coloured silks, and dated
1612. German. 2 feet 5 inches by 1 foot 9 inches.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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