Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 27. (Budapest, 2009)
Enikő SIPOS: Hungarian-Related Textile Works in Switzerland
3. Fragment of a fourteenth-century cloth from the collection of the Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest. Instead of powdered gold powdered copper on canvas ground cause it corresponded to the divisions of the field. Hungarian banners like the ones kept in Bern can only otherwise be seen in the Illuminated Chronicle (c . 1360). The banners were probably made around 1330 in the lifetime of Agnes of Habsburg, but they were not produced at the same time or in the same way. 8 The double cross is painted on two of them; the third has a canvas cross appliquéd to it. They are rather worn and the basic silk fabric is tattered and incomplete. The hardened painted parts have fallen out of one of them, perhaps due to the harmful effect of the paint. The conspicuously homogenous missing part in this item suggests that the cross was originally black or dark brown. Before the invention of synthetic paints, these colours were produced from tannin treated with iron mordant. Tannin contains gallic acid and iron mordant itself is acidic, that is, harmful to silk. In consequence, the painted parts eventually crumble away, just like black thread in tapestry or letters written in oak gall ink. 9 On the other banner a white double cross was painted on the entire surface of what was originally a red cross. The painting has largely worn off, as have the white contours on the edges. 1 0 Since the dating and provenance of the banners have largely been established, this essay will focus on how painted and dyed textiles and textiles with fitted parts were produced in these times. The written sources confirm that painting non-embroidered bed curtains, tapestries, costumes, trappings, caparisons and banners was the task of draughtsmen and painters who would cooperate with the embroiderers and armourers, with usually the former providing the design or pattern. Decorating silk or linen cloth by painting or using stamps or printing blocks was widespread practice in this period (fig. 3). Often the pattern was applied in this way before 4. Detail of a wall hanging showing the use of several printing blocks, fourteenth century. (Basle , Historisches Museum) 137
