The piece of tapestry in which the central scene of this story is depicted is about 6 feet wide by 7 3/4 feet high, and is worth $1,500. if appropriately lines and fringed, it would make a very charming portiere, or it might be framed as part of the design of a high mantle for a chimney; such a use of it might also be exceedingly effective.
Near by is a small framed drawing of Flora, a girlish figure in white drapery, with a background of scroll-foliage. This represents a piece of tapestry now in the loom, or about to go in. The size will be 10 feet by 7 feet. There is a companion figure of Pomona in the Damask-room, which we did not notice in speaking of the damasks. It is also a design for a piece not yet executed. The two figures, we estimate, will be worth $2,500 each, duty paid. The figures in these two designs are by Mr. Burne Jones, the backgrounds by Mr. Morris. We are now prepared to take commissions for wall-hangings in sets, for portieres, altar-cloths, and other things for which this material is suitable.
There remains now but the embroideries and the painted glass to complete the review of our exhibit. We will turn to the embroideries in the next room.
EMBROIDERY
must have been in its origin a much later art than tapestry, unless we suppose the dressed skins which preceded woven cloth were ornamented by stitches. If embroidery was originally an attempt to ornament plain pieces of woollen or silken sloth, the loom is presupposed for the making of the cloth; and the original loom, we have described, being as fit for pattern-weaving as for plain, the pattern or border would scarcely take longer than the unpatterned part. Decoration by means of the needle, after the weaving, therefore, implies such improved mechanism of the loom as would take the weaving of plain cloth a much quicker thing than pattern-weaving. It must, therefore, have followed the invention of the shuttle. The use of the shuttle at once quickened the process of weaving, but made all pattern-weaving, except the merest plaids, impossible for many years to come, - until, in fact, the apparatus we now call a Jacquard was, not invented, but prototyped. The first embroideries were no doubt very simple affairs of borderings and powderings, and the weaver in course of time found means to imitate some of these; and since then has continually increased the size and richness of his patterning, but under conditions that limit him in many ways. He has succeeded in restricting the field of the embroiderer, but not in replacing him, and he never will do that. There will always be a limit to pattern-making by the loom, even by the tapestry-loom, the ablest of all; and outside that limit, embroidery is supreme. This unapproachable ground is therefore the proper field for the embroiderer; and his occupation of this ground - or of the lost country where the weaver, of whatever kind, is his superior in price and style - is a good test of the embroiderer's understanding of his art. We sometimes see a needle-worker trying to enrich a beautiful damask with cobble-stitch, or wasting much time in doing what the loom would do much better. Embroidery, to be worth the doing, should, in our opinion, achieve something that cannot be so well done in any other way. Its advantage lies in the perfect freedom of the worker, in the means it gives him to do what is quite unattainable by other means. When, therefore, we see embroidery getting daily coarser in a foolish competition with machine-work, and hear the boast that the machine can "produce the effects of the best-class hand-work," it is not useless to show of what the art is capable. The large, framed piece is a work of pure embroidery. the surface is completely covered with stitching, so that the effect is wholly produced by the needle. The workmanship, we will venture to say, is quite unrivalled.
Notice the perfect gradations of shade and color; how truly the lines radiate with the growth and play of the leafage, and how perfectly the lustre of the silk is preserved! The perfect beauty of the coloring is also due, in great part, to the sympathy and skill of the worker. How would it have been possible for any master, otherwise, to have directed the choice of so many shades, and to have obtained that blending of them which is part of refinement of the work? Notice, also, how skilfully the ground has been used to modify the tint where gradations too subtle for the dyer were needed. This is truly a work `sui generis.' Oil-painting would have had less depth and lustre; the Jacquard loom could not have given the immense variety, not the tapestry loom the purity of gradation. It is emphatically embroidery, and we may say, without affectation, embroidery at its best. But what is it for? Well, it is permitted to some things to be simply beautiful, and no other service is asked of them. This is more beautiful than many useless things we buy and are proud to possess. If it should not be found worthy to join one of the collections of rare and beautiful things in America, it may perhaps find a place in the South Kensington Museum, as a model of excellence in this art. It was exhibited for a short time in our show-room in London before this Exhibition opened. Its value in the United States is $2000. The size is 7 feet 9 inches by 5 feet 9 inches.
We are not exhibiting any other work quite so beautiful as this, but there are a few in the case only inferior to it. The most important is a coverlet worked after the same manner, but with filoselle upon cotton. It is about 6 feet 9 inches long by 4 feet 6 inches wide. There is a border of about 12 inches; inside this, the ground is covered with pale-gold, on which the design, freely flowing from the centre, is inlaid with yellow-green, blue, pain, purple, and dark-green. The border has a pink ground, with pale-blue, deep-blue, light-green, dark-green, purple, and yellow, - the inner and outer lines of the border being blue. The subdued sheen of the filoselle makes this beautiful piece of work not too magnificent for its purpose. It is lines with silk and fringed.
As a sample of another kind of work is a table-cover of blue cloth, embroidered with silk twist. The work is necessarily of a firm, close kind; and the design is adapted to it, being somewhat more conventional in its forms and treatment. The stitch, we may say, is not chain-stitch, as so many visitors seem to think.
A quite different kind is represented by the embroidered cushion, which is intended to exhibit the full richness of floss. To get that, the silk is laid on the surface is long tresses, and bound to it by stitches which make a Diaper pattern. This kind of embroidery is of course only fit for shapes that can be treated flatly. The flowers, which give variety and scale to the pattern, are worked with ordinary embroidery-stitch.
In the same case are many smaller things, - chair-backs, five-o'clock tea-cloths, &c., - worked mostly on linen, with washable silks; and there are some pieces of the simpler kind prepared for finishing.
The silks and wools we sell for embroidery are of our own dyeing, and are all washable.*
[*It may be a proper caution to say that for such washing only pure toilet soaps should be used, and that the object must not be soaped, but immersed in a warm lather made with the soap.]
To this explanation we are almost ashamed to add that none of the work is done by machinery. This announcement has already caused much surprise by visitors, who have asked if the work was really done by hand. It is equally surprising to us that there should be any belief the embroidery we are exhibiting could be done by means less delicate in operation, and less sensitive to the least change of the worker's intention. Our preliminary remarks will have shown that we consider the province of embroidery outside of all kinds of mechanical work. Machine-embroidery, lace-making, and weaving have all uses quite distinct from those of hand-embroidery.
STAINED GLASS.
In the Damask room are two framed drawings of windows which we did not notice; they have their full descriptions appended, and we wished to reserve what we have to say on painted glass for this place. The stained glass we are exhibiting will be found by turning to the left as you step into the Hall out of the Tapestry room. It fills two of the windows of the hall. there are four single figures, about 5 feet high, and four small subjects. the figures represent St. Cecily, Samuel the Prophet, St. Mark, and Elijah. They are all of different scale, and are shown as examples of different treatments. The small subjects are in pairs: Eli and Samuel in the Temple, and Timothy with his Mother, in panels about 26 inches by 22; Christ in the Temple, and Christ Blessing Children, in panels about 23 inches by 19. They are all from cartoons by Mr. Burne-Jones. It was thought better to show these portions of several windows, rather than one window completely. The framed drawings, and others in the portfolio, will give examples of more comprehensive designs. The larger Allerton window is a Paradise, that for Easthampstead a Doom, and the little Allerton window in the Tapestry room is the Revelation to the Shepherds, `Gloria in excelsis Deo.' As regards the method of painting and the design, our glass differs so much from other kinds that we may be allowed a word in apology. Glass-painting differs from oil-painting and fresco, mostly in the translucency of the material and the strength, amounting to absolute blackness of the outlines. This blackness of outline is due to the use of lead frames, or settings, which are absolutely necessary for the support of the pieces of glass if various colors are used. It becomes therefore a condition and characteristic of glass-painting. Absolute blackness of outline and translucency of color are then the differentia between glass-paining and panel or wall painting. They lead to treatment quite peculiar in its principles of light and shade and composition, and make glass-painting an art apart. In the first place, the drawing and composition have to be much more simple, and yet more carefully studied, than in paintings which have all the assistance of shadow and reflected lights to disguise faults and assist the grouping. In the next place, the light and shade must be so managed that the strong outlines shall not appear crude, nor the work within it thin; this implies a certain conventionalism of treatment and makes the details of a figure much more an affair of drawing than of painting; because by drawing, - that is, by filling the outlines with other lines of proportionate strength, - the force of the predominant lines is less unnatural. These, then, are the well-balanced and shapely figures, pure and simple drawing, and a minimum of light and shade. There is another reason for this last. Shading is a dulling of the glass; it is therefore inconsistent with the use of a material which was chosen for its brightness. After these we ask for beautiful color. There may be more of it, or less; but it is only rational and becoming that the light we stain should not be changed to dirt or ugliness. Color, pure and sweet, is the least you should ask for in a painted window.
Instructions for painted windows should be sent direct to Morris and Company, 449 Oxford St., London, England.
This closes our account of the things we are exhibiting at Boston. As a complement to the descriptions you have followed, we append a list of those tradesmen in Boston with whom our goods are placed. We sell only to them, and no others can supply the goods we make. This statement is the more necessary, as we know that unauthorized copies and various imitations are offered for sale, without explanation.
Our Wall-Papers, Cretonnes, Damasks, Dress-Silks,
Embroidery-Silks, and Crewels
Are to be had of A.H. DAVENPORT, 96 Washington Street.
Our Wall-Papers, From J.F. BUMSTEAD & CO., 148 Tremont Street.
Our Carpets, From JOEL GOLDTHWAIT & CO., 169 Washington
Street.
ELLIOT & BULKLEY, 42 EAST 14th STREET, NEW YORK,
Are our General Agents in America for the sale of any of the above-mentioned goods.
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