called
_millefleurs_.

A Burgundian tapestry that has come to this country to add to our
increasing riches, is the large hanging known as _The Sack of
Jerusalem_. (Plate facing page 46.) Almost more than any other it
revivifies the ancient times of Philip the Hardy, John without Fear,
and Charles the Bold, when these dukes, who were monarchs in all but
name, were leading lives that make our own Twentieth Century fretting
seem but the unrest of aspens. Such hangings as this, _The Sack of
Jerusalem_, were those that the great Burgundian dukes had hung about
their tents in battle, their castles in peace, their facades and
bridges in fetes.

The subject chosen hints religion, but shouts bloodshed and battle.
Those who like to feel the texture of old tapestries would find this
soft and pliable, and in wondrous state of preservation. Its colours
are warm and fresh, adhering to red-browns and brown-reds and a
general mellow tone differing from the sharp stained-glass contrasts
noticed in _The Sacraments_. Costumes show a naive compromise between
those the artist knew in his own time and those he guessed to
appertain to the year of our Lord 70, when the scene depicted was
actually occurring. The tapestry resembles in many ways the famous
tapestries of the Duke of Devonshire which are known as the Hardwick
Hall tapestries. In drawing it is similar, in massing, in the placing
of spots of interest. This large hanging is a part of the collection
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The Boston Museum of Fine Arts exhibits a primitive hanging which is
probably woven in France, Northern France, at the end of the Fifteenth
Century. (Plate facing page 40.) It represents, in two panels, the
power of the church to drive out demons and to confound the heathen.
Fault can be found with its crudity of drawing and weave, but
tapestries of this epoch can hold a position of interest in spite of
faults.

[Illustration: THE SACK OF JERUSALEM (DETAIL)

Burgundian Tapestry, about 1450. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York]

A fine piece at the same museum is the long, narrow hanging
representing scenes from the life of Christ, with a scene from
Paradise to start the drama. (Plate facing page 41.) This tapestry,
which is of great beauty, is subdivided into four panels by slender
columns suggesting a springing arch which the cloth was too low to
carry. All the pretty Gothic signs are here. The simple flowers
upspringin