Textile Fabrics: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Church-vestments, Dresses, Silk Stuffs, Needlework and Tapestries, forming that Section of the MuseumRock, Daniel
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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
When anything--flower, fruit, or figure--is wrought by itself upon
a separate piece of silk or canvas, and afterwards sewed on to the
vestment for church use, or article for domestic purpose, it comes to
be known as “cut-work.” Though often mixed with embroidery, and oftener
still employed by itself upon liturgical garments; oftenest of all, it
is to be found in bed-curtains, hangings for rooms and halls, hence
called “hallings,” and other items in household furniture.
Of cut-work in embroidery, those pieces of splendid Rhenish needlework
with the blazonment of Cleves, all sewed upon a ground of crimson silk,
as we see, Nos. 1194-5, p. 21. The chasuble of crimson double-pile
velvet, No. 78, p. 1, affords another good example. The niches in which
the saints stand are loom-wrought, but those personages themselves are
exquisitely done on separate pieces of fine canvass, and afterwards let
into the unwoven spaces left open for them.
A Florentine piece of cut-work, No. 5788, p. 111, is alike remarkable
for its great beauty, and the skill shown in bringing together so
nicely, weaving and embroidery. Much of the architectural accessories
is loom-wrought, while the extremities of the evangelists are all
done by the needle; but the head, neck, and long beard are worked by
themselves upon very fine linen, and afterwards put together after
such a way that the full white beard overlaps the tunic. Another and
a larger example, from Florence, of the same sort, is furnished us at
No. 78, p. 1. Quite noteworthy too is the old and valuable vestment,
No. 673, p. 5, in this regard, for parts of the web in the back orphrey
were left open, in the looms for the heads, and extremities of the
figures there, to be done afterwards in needlework. Such a method of
weaving was practised in parts of Germany, and the web from the looms
of Cologne, No. 1329, p. 61, exhibits an example.
Other methods were bade to come and yield a quicker help in this
cut-work. To be more expeditious, all the figures were at once shaped
out of woven silk, satin, velvet, linen, or woollen cloth as wanted,
and sewed upon the grounding of the article. Upon the personages thus
fashioned in silk, satin, or linen, the features of the face and the
contours of the body were wrought by the needle in very narrow lines
done in brown silk thread. At times, even thus much of embroidery
was set aside for the painting brush, and instances are to be found
in which the spaces left uncovered by the loom for the heads and
extremities of the human figures, are filled in by lines from the brush.
Often, too, the cut-work done in these ways is framed, as it were, with
an edging, either in plain or gilt leather, hempen, or silken cord,
exactly like the leadings of a stained glass window.
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