Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 27. (Budapest, 2009)
Enikő SIPOS: Hungarian-Related Textile Works in Switzerland
6. Banner from Königsfelden with the appliqué double cross of Hungary (Bern, Historisches Museum ) Recipe no. 280, for example gives instructions for painting and gilding linen cloth: "If you wish to paint a linen cloth, and to lay gold upon it, prepare it thus. Take parchment or clippings of parchment, and put them into a jar with water, which must be placed over the fire and made to boil as before directed; then dip a cloth into it, take it out immediately, and stretch it out on a wet panel, and let it dry. Then burnish or polish it all over with a glass muller, and stretch it out, fastening it on to a wooden frame with the thread. You may then paint upon it with colours distempered with size, or egg, or gum." 2 1 It has been suggested that these recipes were tor producing patterned textile, a recipe no. 195 confirms: "And when you wish to gild leather or purple cloth, or linen or silk cloths, stir up altogether (gypsum distemper it with white of egg, and mix it with gum ammoniac and gum Arabic) and draw beasts, and birds and flowers upon them with a very sharp stick, and let them dry." 2 2 The cross appliquéd to the third banner was cut out of painted cloth. The basic material is white linen cloth which features, enclosed by interlacing quadruple lobes the dove of the Holy Ghost, painted in black. The spaces between the lobes are filled with plant ornaments (fig. 6). 2 3 The applique, called opus consutum was often a work of embroidery, very common in the Middle Ages. The rise in demand required the speeding of the process. As a result, decorating fabric by appliquéing different-coloured cloth became very widespread, in particular with heraldic motifs. The technique had the great advantage of highly decorative effects being easy and quick to produce by appliquéing textiles of a different colour and/or pattern or by varying the negative and positive patches of the pattern, and also it afforded the chance to use leftover pieces of expensive material or reuse the better bits of spoilt pieces. The cut edges of material were protected from fraying with a hemming stitch, decorative cord or beeswax. Another method of speeding up the work was to use repeated motifs which meant that more than one embroiderer could work on the same pattern. 2 4 One of the finest Hungarian examples of the appliqué technique is the recently found silk tapestry with the Anjou and Hungarian coat of arms. 2 5 All three of the banners are identical in material and shape with the Austrian and German banners in the possession of the Historisches Museum in Bern. 2 6 Two embroidered antependia There are two antependia in the collection of mediaeval textiles of the Bern History Museum, which are directly connected to Agnes of Habsburg s patronage, and can be identified with two entries in the records of the year 1357 in the archives of the treasury of the Königsfelden convent. The dimensions match, too: 318 x 90 cm. 140
