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
Belonging to ourselves is an old English chasuble, the broad cross,
at the back of which is figured with “The Resurrection of the Body.”
The dead are arising from their graves, and each is wrought in satin,
upon which the features on the face, and the lineaments of the rest of
the body, are shown by thin lines worked with the needle in dark brown
silk; and the edge, where each figure is sewed on the grounding, is
covered with a narrow black silk cord, after much the same fashion as
the lectern-veil here, No. 7468, p. 141, of silk and gold cut work.
Instances there are wherein, instead of needlework, painting was
resorted to; No. 8315, p. 189, shows us a fine art-work in its way,
upon which we see the folds of the white linen garment worn by our
Lord, marked by brown lines put in with the brush, while the head and
extremities, and the ground strewed with flowers, are wrought with
the needle. No. 8687, p. 258, gives us a figure where the whole of
the person, the fleshes and clothing, are done in woven silk cut out,
shaded and featured in colours by the brush with some little needlework
here and there upon the garments. In that old specimen, No. 8713,
p. 270, such parts of the design as were meant to be white are left
uncovered upon the linen, and the shading is indicated by brown lines.
Perhaps in no collection open anywhere to public view could be found a
piece of cut-work so full of teaching about the process, and its easy
way of execution, as the one here, No. 1370, p. 76; to it we earnestly
recommend the attention of such of our readers as may wish to learn all
about this method.
For the invention of cut-work or “di commesso,” as Vasari calls
it, that writer tells us we are indebted to one of his Florentine
countrymen: “It was by Sandro Botticelli that the method of preparing
banners and standards in what is called cut-work, was invented; and
this he did that the colours might not sink through, showing the tint
of the cloth on each side. The baldachino of Orsanmichele is by this
master, and is so treated,” &c., and this work serves to show how much
more effectually that mode of proceeding preserves the cloth than do
those mordants, which, corroding the surface, allow but a short life to
the work; but as the mordants cost less, they are more frequently used
in our day than the first-mentioned method.[333]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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