Silk Damask; ground, purple; pattern, heraldic figures, birds, and oval floriations, in gold thread. Oriental, 14th century. 16 inches by 9 inches. On an oval, floriated all round, and enclosing two lionesses addorsed rampant regardant, are two wyvern-like eagles with curious feathered tails, regardant; below, are two cockatoos addorsed regardant, all in gold. The oval floriation is outlined with green. When new, this stuff must have had a brave appearance, and shows a Persian tradition about it. 7071. Linen, embroidered in silk; ground, fine linen; pattern, a zigzag, alternating in light blue and brown. German, 15th century. 14 inches by 3½ inches. The zigzag may be termed dancette, and all over is parted into lozenges, each lozenge charged with a cross made of mascles, and the spaces between the brown and the blue zigzags, filled in with others of a light brown coloured diapering. 7072. Silk Damask; ground, violet or deep purple; pattern, angels with thuribles, and emblems of the Passion, in yellow and white. Florentine, late 14th century. 18¼ inches by 15¾ inches. This truly artistic and well-executed stuff displays a row of angels in girded albs, all flying one way, as with the left hand they swing thuribles, and another row kneeling, each with a crown of thorns in his hands, alternating, with a second set of angels, in another row, each bearing before him a cross. All the angels are done in yellow, but with face and hands white, and the whole ground is strewed with stars. It is likely that this fine stuff was woven expressly for the purple vestments worn in Passion time, at the end of Lent. 7073. Crimson Silk and Gold Brocade; ground, a diaper of crimson; pattern, an oval reticulation, in the meshes of which is an artichoke flower, all in gold. Genoese, 16th century. 16¾ inches by 9 inches. The design of this rich stuff is well managed, and the diapering in dull silk upon a satin ground throws out the gold brocading admirably; the meshes which enclose the flowers are themselves formed of garlands. 7074. Raised Crimson Velvet, damasked in gold; pattern, the artichoke and small floriations in gold. Genoese, 16th century. 15¾ inches by 11½ inches. A specimen of what, in its prime, must have been a fine stuff for household decoration, though of such a nature as to have freely allowed it to be employed for ecclesiastical purposes. It has seen rough service, so that its pile is in places thread-bare, and its gold almost worn away. 7075. Raised Velvet on Gold Ground; pattern, a very large rose with broad border in raised crimson velvet, filled in with a bush of pomegranates, in very thin lines of raised crimson velvet; the rest of the ground is diapered all over with the pomegranate tree in very thin outline. Genoese, early 16th century. 2 feet 9 inches by 2 feet.