Lefebure about the embroiderers' guilds
are also extremely interesting. Etienne Boileau, in his book of crafts,
to which I have already alluded, tells us that a member of the guild was
prohibited from using gold of less value than 'eight sous (about 6s.) the
skein; he was bound to use the best silk, and never to mix thread with
silk, because that made the work false and bad.' The test or trial piece
prescribed for a worker who was the son of a master-embroiderer was 'a
single figure, a sixth of the natural size, to be shaded in gold'; whilst
one not the son of a master was required to produce 'a complete incident
with many figures.' The book of crafts also mentions 'cutters-out and
stencillers and illuminators' amongst those employed in the industry of
embroidery. In 1551 the Parisian Corporation of Embroiderers issued a
notice that 'for the future, the colouring in representations of nude
figures and faces should be done in three or four gradations of carnation-
dyed silk, and not, as formerly, in white silks.' During the fifteenth
century every household of any position retained the services of an
embroiderer by the year. The preparation of colours also, whether for
painting or for dyeing threads and textile fabrics, was a matter which,
M. Lefebure points out, received close attention from the artists of the
Middle Ages. Many undertook long journeys to obtain the more famous
recipes, which they filed, subsequently adding to and correcting them as
experience dictated. Nor were great artists above making and supplying
designs for embroidery. Raphael made designs for Francis I., and Boucher
for Louis XV.; and in the Ambras collection at Vienna is a superb set of
sacerdotal robes from designs by the brothers Van Eyck and their pupils.
Early in the sixteenth century books of embroidery designs were produced,
and their success was so great that in a few years French, German,
Italian, Flemish, and English publishers spread broadcast books of design
made by their best engravers. In the same century, in order to give the
designers opportunity of studying directly from nature, Jean Robin opened
a garden with conservatories, in which he cultivated strange varieties of
plants then but little known in our latitudes. The rich brocades and
brocadelles of the time are characterised by the introduction of large
flowery patterns, with pomegranates and other fruits with fine foliage.

The second part of M. Lefebure's book is de