Tue Dec 18, 2018 08:16 PM

Morning Modelbuch (12/19/2018)

This one is interesting with a combination of a central pattern and border, both in modelbucher. They actually both show up in the same books, but I was having a difficult time finding them in any particular version. That’s one of the issues of books made to be used, they are rarely complete and sometimes bound with different selections and orders of the pages. Part of why looking at each museum’s copy of any particular book is useful. They are all different.

The center pattern is done a bit oddly in the textile with the Christogram (the Latin version of the Greek letters iota, eta, and sigma used as an abbreviation for the Greek spelling of Jesus) flipped and reversed as well as done in the patterned orientation.

The center motif is from a pretty popular book of patterns that is republished from the 1530’s into the 1580’s. Image is from the 1532 version of de Sera _Libbretto nouellamete composto per maestro Domenico da Sera_ https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/662855

The outer border of Xes is an image from the 1571 Bassee _New Modelbuch_ https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1510829w/f17.image.r=Bassee

Textile is from Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Dr. Denman W. Ross in 1916. Object number 1916.379. They have it listed as Italian and as embroidery, but no date. https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/art/215080