conomy in dyes brings too great disaster to contemplate. It
is only too true that a man, several men, may labour a year to produce
a perfect work, and that all the labour may be ruined by an ephemeral
dye, by the escape of tones skilfully laid. Let commerce cheat in some
other way, if it must, but not in this. Let the dye be honest, as
enduring as the colours imprisoned in gems.

[Illustration: BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. MODERN CARTOON]

It is a modern economy. The ancients knew not of it, and were
willing to spend any amount on colours. More than that a port, or a
nation, was willing to rest its fame on a single colour. Purple of
Tyre, red of Turkey, yellow of China, are terms familiar through the
ages, and think not these colours were to be had for the asking. They
brought prices which we do not pay now even in this age of money. The
brothers Gobelins--their fame originally rested on their ambition to
be "dyers of scarlet," that being an ultimate test of skill.

It is a serious matter, that of dyeing wools and silks for tapestries,
and one which the directors conduct within the walls of the tapestry
factory. The Gobelins uses for its reds, cochineal or the roots of the
madder; for blue, indigo and Prussian blue; for yellow, the vegetable
colour extracted from gaude.

In America there is a specialist in dyes: Miss Charlotte Pendleton, who
gives her entire attention to rediscovering the dyes of the ancients,
the dyes that made a city's fame. It is owing to her conscientious
work that the tapestry repairers of museums can find appropriate
threads.

It is interesting to trace the differing gamut of colour through the
ages. Old dyes produced, old weavers needed, but twenty tones for the
old work. Tapestries of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries were as
simple in scale as stained glass, and as honest. Flesh tints were
neutral by contrast to the splendid reds, honest yellows and rich
greens. Colours meant something, then, too; had a sentimental language
all their own. When white predominated, purity was implied; black was
mortification of the flesh; livid yellow was tribulation; red,
charity; green, meditation.

An examination of the colours in the series which depicts the life of
Louis XIV, reveals a use of but seventy-nine colours. So up to that
time, great honesty of dye, and fine decorative effect were preserved.
The shades were produced by two little tricks open as the day,
hatching being one, the other, winding