File:Embroidery and lace- their manufacture and history from the remotest antiquity to the present day. A handbook for amateurs, collectors and general readers (1888) (14800225693).jpg

Identifier: embroiderylaceth00lefb (find matches)
Title: Embroidery and lace: their manufacture and history from the remotest antiquity to the present day. A handbook for amateurs, collectors and general readers
Year: 1888 (1880s)
Authors: Lefébure, Ernest, b. 1835 Cole, Alan S. (Alan Summerly), 1846-1934
Subjects: Lace and lace making Embroidery
Publisher: London, H. Grevel
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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other of Europe, and that was embroideryAnd Byzantium held for many centuries the foremostplace as the producer of the richest and most perfectedexamples of the art. The contentions of the Iconoclasts drove manyByzantine artists into Italy. The Liber Pontificalis,or Chronicle of the Popes, written in 687 by Athanasiusthe librarian, contains mention of an influx into Romeof gorgeous embroideries, the work of men who hadarrived from Greece and Constantinople. The Treasury at Ratisbon in Bavaria includes aByzantine embroidery, which probably is a work of thisperiod, and is certainly very remarkable. It was foundin the tomb of Gunther, who died, Bishop of Bamberg,in 1062 (fig. 26). Upon it is depicted the EmperorConstantine as master of the world, riding on a white 4 50 I. EMBROIDERY. palfrey and receiving homage from the East and West,personified as the two Romes under the guise of twoqueens, wearing mural crowns, and humbly offering tothe monarch a warriors helmet on the one hand and a
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Fig. 26.—Byzantine embroidery from the tomb of Gunther, Bishop ofBamberg, preserved at Ratisbon. crown of peace, on the other. In all respects this speci-men is noteworthy for the dignified pose of the figuresand the distinctness of definition imparted to them bycareful and precise execution. It possesses as much FROM THE CHRISTIAN ERA TO THE CRUSADES. 5 I style in the higher sense of the word as the finestof Byzantine mosaics. Leaving Byzantium and her magnificence we nowturn our attention to examples of simpler and more art-less work, notable for a certain purity of sentiment, andmade by Western countries. With our Gallic forefathers embroidery was an oldestablished art. Pliny affirms that they were skilful in embroidering carpets, in making felt with wool,and in using the waste to make mattresses, the inven-tion of which is due to them. Under Roman government the Gauls may be said tohave first enjoyed the advantages of civilization and thepleasures of its attendant arts, which we

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