Studio: international art (2.1894)

English Embroidered Book-Covers

fifteenth century, by Anne de Felbrigge, a nun in to have been made in Italy or Germany, and is a

the convent of Brusyard in Suffolk. On one side fine wire closely covered with coloured silk, and

is the Crucifixion, and on the other a beautiful then twisted into a close spiral.

design of the Annunciation. A very pretty thread is made of silk with a

Lace, or button-hole, stitch in silks and linen spiral of gold or silver wire, round or flat, enclosing

threads is often found on books, frequently in it at intervals; it was probably made by running

combination with padded work. Some of this the silk through a tight spiral of the metal, and

work is very quaint, butterflies and birds with then pulling the wire out to the desired distance.

wings, free as in Nature itself; pods ____________

that can be opened, showing the peas

within; flowers and leaves in the

highest relief, fastened perhaps only

by one or two strong stitches, and

emblematic figures with large lace

collars and cuffs. This exaggerated

kind of work must be considered

more curious than beautiful, and it

seems only to have been the fashion,
as applied to books, for a short time

during the reign of Charles I., al-
though frequent instances of it are
known in ordinary embroidery before
and after that period.

Tapestry stitch on canvas was
much used for works of lesser value.
The designs worked in this manner
are generally scriptural, but now and
then floral models have been used ;
this stitch is usually found on the
bags used for keeping embroidered
books in, and a pretty form often
found is when the flowers or other
decorations are worked in colours
on a silver-thread groundwork.

At most periods, and during the
prevalence of most styles of the art
in England, there seems to have l^^^gjP^*»g^
existed a marked piking for the use '^^j;'*'"'

of these are very curious, such as the

one shown on two leaves in one of henshaw's "flom successive," 1632. (fig. 3.) drawn by

, , • /t^- \ . cyril davenport, p.s.a.

the drawings (rig. 4) accompanying

this paper. It appears like a series of little rings, Indeed, it is almost impossible to examine closely

but is really a small metal spiral carefully flattened any book entirely covered, as so many are, with

out. Odd little edgings of silver or gold punched metal thread-work, without finding some new and

out into running patterns are frequently seen mark- ingenious combination of wire and silk, gold, silver

ing the outlines of designs or the borders of gar- and tinsel.

ments, and the numbers and combinations of gold A few words may perhaps be said here as to the

and silver gimp, cord and braid, are innumerable. manner in which a cover of the olden kind can

Sometimes they have a silk foundation, and some- best be worked. The book itself should be sewn

times not. Minute flat ribbons of silver and gold with sawn-in bands, and have a flat back, the

are seen fastened down with silks in different pat- boards fixed, and the gilding, marbling, or painting

terns, and during the seventeenth century especially of the edges done before the embroider)- is

a thread known as purl was much used. It is said begun. That is to say, the binding of the book

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