A hanging of silk lampas

Circa 1580-1610. Italian or Spanish

The repeated design of a stylised flowering foliate stem in a vase flanked by a pair of addorsed regardant birds in gold on a red ground, with the reverse side of the silk showing the opposite colour arrangement. Consisting of two full widths and two part widths, edged with later gold braid and backed with silk.

Four pieces of the same silk are in the collection of the V & A Museum, acc. no. 547-1884, with one of these on view in room 63 of the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries. Another was sold as part of the Mayorcas Collection, Christie’s King Street, 12th February 1999, as lot 332. Comparable silks can also be found in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, object no. 44.28.6, and illustrated in ‘Catalogue d’Etoffes Anciennes’, Errera, publ. Brussels 1927, no. 258, and in ‘Europaische Seidengewebe des 13.-18. Jahrhunderts - Kunstgewerbemuseum der Stadt Koln’, Markowsky, publ. Cologne 1976, no. 216.

Provenance: Mayorcas

149cm (58⅝”) high and 172cm (67¾”) wide.