se.]

Amongst the conventional patterns which have descended to us, and are
in general use without any particular symbolical meaning being
attached to them, we must instance those derived from the Cloud
pattern. This is to be found in early Chinese and Indian art, but I do
not recognize it in Egyptian or Greek decoration. It came through
Byzantium, and took its place amongst early Christian patterns. (Pl.
29.)

[Illustration: Pl. 31.
THE FUNDATA OR NETTED PATTERN.
Portion of a Phoenician Bowl from Cyprus.
Egyptian.
Egyptian.
Egyptian.]

The cloud pattern is also Japanese, and is supposed to have been
originally derived from Central Asia. It varies in shape, and is found
as an ornament on the head of the sceptre in the collection at Nara,
in Japan, which is twelve or thirteen hundred years old. There is an
example of the cloud pattern in Aelfled's embroidery at Durham; and it
is often found under the feet of saints in painted glass and
embroideries before the fourteenth century. A curious Indian example
exists in a coverlet belonging to the Marquis of Salisbury, said to
have been the property of Oliver Cromwell, on which the central
medallion is filled with white horses careering amidst the cloud
pattern.[126] (Pl. 30.)

The _netted_ pattern called Fundata is extremely ancient. We find it
in Egyptian mural paintings, as well as in the centre of a
Phoenician bowl from Cyprus, now in the Louvre. The mediaeval Fundata
was a silk material, covered with what appeared to be a gold network
covering the stuff. It is supposed to be the same as that worn by
Constantine,[127] and is named in ecclesiastical inventories as late
as the fifteenth century. (Pl. 31.)

All the wheel patterns are very ancient, and appear to be simply
conventional wheels. In France they were called _roes_. There is a
fine instance of this wheel pattern in Auberville's "Tissus." The
wheels sometime enclose triumphal cars and other pictorial subjects.
(Pl. 34.)

The patterns which are apparently composed with the intention of
avoiding all meaning, are the Moorish. They are neither animal,
vegetable, nor anything else. They show no motive in their complicated
domes, their honeycombing, and their ingenious conventional forms; but
cover equally textile fabrics or stucco ceilings without suggesting
any idea, religious or symbolical.

All the splendid Italian brocades and velvet damasks were of
conventional patterns, and like th