COLOUR DECORATION IN GERMANY
There was little, if any, art or architecture in Germany before the days
of Charlemagne, except that which found expression in the various
articles and objects of personal adornment, such as in brooches, rings,
in the costume of the warriors and chiefs, and in some objects of
general utility, where the lesser arts--_die Kleinkünste_--were
developed and attained to high degrees of perfection, in the Romanesque
period and Middle Ages. Charlemagne, who reigned from 768 to 814, was a
great art-loving prince, and gave the first impulse to art in Germany
when he built his stately church, which he also intended for his tomb,
at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). Here he had also his chief palace, but of
this, and of the many others he possessed on the banks of the Rhine, no
definite traces remain but his palace-chapel, now the cathedral, or the
round portion of the latter, which still exists in good preservation,
and is a fitting monument to his greatness, and to his zeal for the
promotion of art in Germany. This church is said to be a copy in plan
of the Byzantine Church of St. Vitale at Ravenna, except that the latter
is an octagon in the ground plan, and the former is a polygon of sixteen
sides. This round type of building was used in Rome and the south not
only for churches, but for baptisteries, and after Charlemagne’s Chapel
was erected in Aachen it became the prototype of circular churches that
were built in the Romanesque period and style in Germany. The church at
Aix-la-Chapelle was decorated with mosaics, similar to those of St.
Vitale at Ravenna, but the original mosaics have all perished, and the
ones which now adorn the dome and pendentives of the church are
modern works by Salviati of Venice, and were executed from a
seventeenth-century copy of the old mosaic. The subject of the dome
mosaic, on a gold ground, represents Christ and the twenty-four Elders
of the Apocalypse. The rest of the central part of the church,
ambulatory walls, etc., are adorned with mosaics within the last ten
years. The choir of this interesting church is an addition, and is a
Gothic building of the fifteenth century. Its walls and vaulted ceiling
are richly adorned with ornamentation in colours and gold, the patterns
of the ornament being similar to, or derived from, the silk tapestries
of that period.
Mosaic as church decoration, except for floor pavements, was not much in
use in Germany after the time of Charlemagne; in the northern countries
of Europe wall painting in tempera became the characteristic method of
decoration for the Romanesque churches, just as mosaic was the chief
kind of decoration for churches in Italy and southern Europe in the same
period.
In the Romanesque epoch in Germany, the period which is generally
understood to extend from A.D. 1000 till about 1200, or a little later,
no church was without its painted decoration. The subjects were similar
to, and the general design and style of drawing were not unlike the
mosaic decoration of churches in Italy and Sicily. Single figures, and
scenes from the Old and New Testaments were enclosed in panels, having
borders designed in elaborate ornamental forms, derived chiefly from
conventional leafage. The figures were usually painted in flat tints, or
almost so; very little shading or modelling of the forms were attempted,
and the whole work was strongly outlined, so that the finished
decoration appeared as an enlarged kind of illumination. The ribs or
groups of mouldings of the vaulted ceilings and the soffits of the
arches were decorated with conventional flowers, garlands and ribbon
work. The apse usually contained a large figure of Christ, or the
Madonna enthroned, surrounded with figures of the Apostles and Saints,
and often on the other parts of the church, such as the triumphal arch,
the ceilings and walls, there were paintings representing the visions of
the Prophets, and the imaginative imagery of the Apocalypse.
The Romanesque churches of the Rhineland afford many examples of
interior colour decoration, for it was in the region watered by the
Rhine that German art was cradled, where it was carefully nursed, and
where it developed to an early maturity. Mural painting as a handmaid,
or as an auxiliary to Romanesque architecture, can still be studied in
many of the old churches in the valley of the Rhine, where it was an
important art as early as the eleventh century. The secular buildings
also, such as the castles, guild-houses, town-halls, chateaux and
private houses were all at this time decorated in colour, but nearly all
of their colour decorations and paintings have been destroyed in the
course of time, except some remaining fragments which have been removed
to local museums. There are, however, a few churches of the Romanesque
period that still have a considerable amount of the eleventh and twelfth
century paintings on their walls, and though much of this work is
greatly faded and has now very little of its former colour and beauty,
yet the composition and outlines are still in evidence, and although we
cannot well judge of their original colouring there are still much
quaintness and charm attached to those examples which have not yet been
restored.
There are four Romanesque churches of the Rhine valley which still have
their wall paintings of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, namely, the
double church at Schwarz Rheindorf, near Bonn, with paintings that were
originally executed about 1150, the chapter-house of the Abbey-church at
Brauweiler, near Cologne, and the crypt of St. Maria im Capitol at
Cologne. The baptistery of the Church of St. Gereon has some wall
paintings of the thirteenth century, and still older work in the crypt.
Perhaps the most important and most interesting of these old
wall-paintings are those that adorn the lower church at Schwarz
Rheindorf, although they have been completely repainted recently, but it
must be admitted the present colouring of them is characteristic of the
Romanesque colour, and can hardly be very far wrong. The subjects appear
to be highly imaginative and poetical conceptions of Biblical scenes,
and there are large figures of the Apostles and Hebrew prophets. The
treatment is in the usual flat method of colouring with strong outlines.
The original paintings were discovered under coats of whitewash in 1853.
The Chapter-house at Brauweiler has some examples of wall-paintings,
dating from the end of the twelfth century, the subjects being scenes
from the Epistle to the Hebrews. In the apse of the church there are
other paintings of the later Gothic period.
In the crypt of the Church of St. Maria im Capitol, at Cologne, there
are some interesting wall paintings of the twelfth century, but they are
in a faded state. This church, however, is remarkable for its rich
modern colouring, and furnishes one of the best examples of the revival
of Romanesque decoration in Germany. It may be said that every inch of
the surfaces of the interior is covered with richly-coloured
ornamentation and figure-paintings, which includes the columns and
piers. The east end is in plan trefoil-like, having three semicircles
with their diameters touching, and the three semi-domes above have
figure subjects that were designed, and the painting begun, by Steinle,
but finished by other artists.
In the crypt of the Church of St. Gereon at Cologne there is a very
interesting series of wall paintings, consisting of single figures of a
colossal size, each painted in curved recesses in the walls. The figures
are noble in design, but the colouring is much faded. They date from
about the twelfth century, and appear to be examples of the original
work, that have not been restored. It may be mentioned here that the
floor of the crypt is a mosaic pavement of the eleventh century. It is
Roman in character, though of German workmanship. The design consists of
figure subjects, where David, Samson, and Delilah are represented, and
also the signs of the Zodiac. These mosaic pavements were discontinued
after the eleventh century, when encaustic and glazed tiles of brown,
red or green colours were used instead of mosaic for floor pavements.
The walls of the baptistery of this church are decorated with painted
figures, of thirteenth-century work. Full length figures of saints and
warriors are arranged in pairs, two of them occupying the upper half of
each arched bay between engaged pillars, and between each two figures is
a small painted column. The lower halves of the bays have each an
ornamental border immediately under each pair of figures, and the rest
of the space below the border is painted in imitation of suspended
tapestries. Altogether this makes a very satisfactory and interesting
scheme of decoration. Such schemes were very common in the decoration of
the Gothic period in Germany and other countries. The rest of the
interior of this church, like that of St. Maria im Capitol, is lavishly
decorated in richly-coloured and gold ornamentation being a modern
revival of Romanesque colouring. The profuse surface decoration used so
much in the Romanesque period was of Byzantine origin, and consisted of
an almost endless variety of forms and motives, such as conventional
vine leafage, fruit and tendrils, flowers of various kinds, scale
patterns, interlacings, frets, geometrical combinations, chevrons,
zigzag patterns, ribbons, garlands, and various representations of
carved Byzantine ornament, and other architectural features, such as
arcading, all treated flatly in colour.
There are other numerous examples of Romanesque painting, colouring and
ornamental decoration still found in other parts of Germany, besides the
examples we have just noticed. The walls and ceilings of the choir and
transepts of Brunswick Cathedral have a complete series of Romanesque
wall paintings of the twelfth century. The finest example of this style
of painting in Germany is the magnificent ceiling of the great nave of
St. Michael’s Church in Hildesheim. It is a flat ceiling of wooden
construction. Running the whole length of the central portion of the
ceiling the space is subdivided into a series of square panels; on each
side of this central space the bands are divided into a great many small
oblong panels, and outside these is a broad enclosing border of
scroll-work containing in circular spaces in this border half-length
figures of saints. The adjoining border has its oblong panels filled
with small full-length figures of Apostles and Prophets. The larger
square panels of the central part have lozenges and quatrefoil forms
inside each square, in alternation. The latter forms contain the seated
figures of kings and other personages that illustrate the genealogy of
Christ, or the Root of Jesse. The Fall is also represented, and the
corner spaces outside the lozenges and quatrefoils are filled with
ornament and small medallions that add great richness to the design
without giving to it any appearance of confusion. The colour is very
strong and rich, and the whole of the decoration is painted on a blue
ground.
The small stained-glass windows of the Romanesque period add a further
note of colour to the interiors, although coloured glass was quite
secondary to the painted decoration of this time. The only figure-work
attempted in the glass was that in the small circular medallions and
lozenge-shaped panels, containing scriptural subjects, which were placed
at intervals amidst a rich setting of leaf patterns and other ornamental
forms.
In the Gothic period, from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, when
the walls of churches became less in extent and area, and the windows
became larger and more numerous, glass painting gradually became the
chief factor in providing the colour of church interiors, and
consequently the art and craft of the glass painter or “glazier,” as he
was called in the old documents, became a more important one than that
of the painter and decorator. When the Gothic builders perfected the rib
vaulting system, their greatest discovery, and the keynote of the style,
they found that walls were not necessary as active agents of the
construction, but of use only in filling up the spaces between the
voids, and were therefore more or less inert masses. They found that
they had no use for walls except to close in the building from the
weather, and so we find that walls began to disappear in Gothic
buildings, and the windows being more numerous and larger, the Gothic
churches were becoming great glasshouses. To prevent this look it was
necessary to fill the windows with coloured glass, which subdued the
otherwise great glare of white light that would come through clear
glass, and would give the interiors a more comfortable appearance, at
the same time adding colour decoration to the buildings. Many Gothic
churches have more area of glass than of walls; the clerestory of the
choir in Amiens Cathedral, for example, has forty times more area of the
void or window space than of the solid stone, and in some cases there
are no walls, as in the highly scientific construction of the upper
portion of the choir in the Cathedral of Prague, where all is glass set
in the stone vaulting shafts. Other large churches or cathedrals built
in the Gothic style might be given as illustrations where the proportion
of void to solid is very great and consequently the windows are very
large, such as Chartres, Cologne, Canterbury, Lincoln and York. In the
smaller Gothic churches of England, or on the Continent, this proportion
of void to solid was generally reversed, and owing to this, and also to
the greater use of wood in the roofs and screens, the smaller churches
everywhere were at this time more richly treated in colour than the
larger ones. The painter and decorator also found more employment in the
treatment of secular buildings with coloured decoration in the Gothic
period than he did on the cathedrals. It was only in rare instances that
important wall paintings have been found in churches of this period; the
colour and decoration, apart from the stained glass, was, especially in
the case of the cathedrals, confined to mouldings, vault ribs, capitals,
piers; and sometimes the webs, or ceilings of the vaults, were wholly
filled with arabesque decoration, but often only partially so, around
the bosses that marked the intersection of
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXIV_
DECORATION OF GROINED CEILING IN THE CHURCH OF ST. JACQUES, LIEGE.
1522-1558]
the ribs. (Plate 24.) It was in the smaller churches, and in the
chambers and chapels attached to larger churches and cathedrals, in the
crypts, sacristies, baptisteries, and sanctuaries, that complete schemes
of colour decoration were carried out, or attempted in the Gothic
period. It might be mentioned that some effective colour notes were
obtained by the richly-coloured and gilt carvings and sculpture in wood
and stone screens, altar-pieces, and the carved and painted tabernacles,
which have been found in great numbers in the Gothic churches of
Germany.
The stained-glass windows of the Gothic period, especially of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, were the finest and best understood
colour decoration in the glass material that has ever been done. Though
many fine windows belonging to this time are found throughout Germany,
Flanders, Bohemia, and Austria, the best examples are found in France,
as at Chartres, and in England at York. The colouring of the glass of
this period has never been surpassed for its splendour and beauty, and
the figure-work and general ornamentation are designed and drawn in a
suitably flat and architectonic style, in harmony with the material. The
flat tapestry-like effect of the designs gives the work an appearance of
mosaic in glass, and the result is what it should be, namely, a
decorative work in “stained” glass, not “painted.” In the fifteenth
century and later, stained glass became degraded to the imitation of
pictures, or light and shade paintings in glass, and consequently lost
its legitimate character as a mosaic in glass. In a word, it became
eventually pictorial in character, and ceased to have the true quality
of stained glass. This later degradation of coloured glass was common to
Germany, France, Italy and England.
The love for colour decoration, as applied to the interiors and
exteriors of secular buildings and private dwellings, was more marked in
Germany than in other European countries during the Middle Ages, and, as
we would expect, Germany, with a tenacious and faithful conservatism,
has clung more closely to her old traditional love for colour and
decoration, and still takes a greater pride in all the circumstance of
civic processions and pageantry, than any other nation in Europe. If we
seek for an explanation of this we shall find that it is an inherited
love from their ancestors, the old Germanic warriors and chiefs, who
ruled the country before the days of Charlemagne, and who took a
passionate delight in colour and in personal adornment. We may take one
illustration of this artistic conservatism, among many others, by
pointing out that the Germans paint and decorate their restaurants
to-day, for example, in the same way as they did in the days of the
fifteenth century.
The museums of Cologne and Munich especially, contain many fragments of
interior decorative painting that were taken from the old houses in
their neighbourhoods. Such specimens of the old work are generally
treated very flatly and only in a few colours, resembling tapestry
designs, all of them having strong outlines that mark out the forms,
like the constructive outline leads of window glass. We may point to one
of the many fragments of this work which is now in the museum at
Cologne: it consists of a portion of a deep and battlemented frieze,
having three panels painted with scenes from the story of the Prodigal
Son (_der lieblose Sohn_), and is executed in tempera in flat tints of
reds, blues, pale yellows and greys, outlined in black. This frieze once
formed a part of the decoration of the dining-hall _des Hauses Glesch
auf der Hochstrasse_, Cologne.
Wooden panelled ceilings of private dwellings in the Gothic and
Renaissance periods were strongly coloured, and the deep friezes on the
walls were painted with figure subjects, heraldry, foliage, flowers and
birds, or sometimes with conventional ornament alone, all the work being
usually painted in tempera, while the walls below were either panelled
with inlaid woods, or carved in wood or stone. In some cases the lower
portion of the wall was painted on the wood or plaster, or hung with
figured tapestries. It may be mentioned that the Germans have always
made the greatest possible use of decorative heraldry, which was
designed with great skill, in an elaborate and sumptuous manner, and
used by them in every form and material of decorative art.
The adornment of the exteriors and interiors of their public buildings,
and also of the better class of private houses, has always been a
passion with the Germans. Many of the old houses in such cities as
Lübeck, a northern German town of the Renaissance, Brunswick,
Hildesheim, Frankfort, Strasburg, Nuremberg, Rothenburg, and the Swabian
city of Augsburg are enriched with a wealth of carving and painting, of
one or of both, on their façades, and in the interiors of their
principal rooms, many examples of which are still in existence. The
carving and painting in and on the houses of the Germans were in most
cases designed and executed by native artists and craftsmen, but in some
instances there are records of foreigners being employed, as in the case
of the Fuggerhaus at Augsburg, where Hans Fugger, a member of that
powerful and wealthy family, had his house decorated in the Italian
Renaissance style, in 1570, the work being done by Italian artists.
The native love for decoration and colour has always been respected in
Germany by the ruling powers, by the municipalities and wealthy
citizens, who have always encouraged and fostered the decorative arts.
The Germans take a civic pride in not only having handsome town-halls,
theatres, railway stations, art galleries, museums, colleges,
universities, and other public buildings, erected as the best possible
examples of fine architecture, but in the adornment of such buildings
with sculpture, fresco, mosaic and other colour decoration.
[Illustration:
_To face p. 104._]
PLATE 25.--EXAMPLE OF DIAPER ORNAMENT, LARGELY USED IN ITALIAN, GERMAN
AND ENGLISH DECORATION OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.]
We might extend these observations on the colouring of architecture in
Germany with a brief description of a few examples of modern work of the
art which has engaged our attention.
The Teutonic love for the Gothic style and for its auxiliary colour and
ornamentation is manifested in the decoration of almost every public
building in modern Germany. This is even apparent in the fittings and
decorations of the luxurious saloons of their great and latest-built
passenger ships, where the dining-rooms and drawing-rooms of the modern
liners are often, as in the case of the _Imperator_, designed and
decorated in the style and true spirit of Medieval Gothic, so that the
passengers might almost imagine that they were living in some castle or
baronial hall of the fifteenth century instead of being on board the
ship.
The staircase walls and ceiling of the Museum at Cologne present a
fairly good scheme of modern German decoration. The walls have fresco
paintings by Steinle, which are important examples of this modern German
painter. The ornamentation that surrounds the frescoes, and that on the
lower parts of the walls are not so good in colour or form as that of
the vaulted ceiling. The work on the latter is good in colour and
successfully carried out. The vaults have crimson-red, and blue
background alternating, on which are painted a well-designed scroll-like
ornamentation in lighter shades with some gold introduced on the
mouldings and other parts, the whole effect being rich and pleasing.
Richly coloured carved wood ceilings, in low relief, which contain
numerous heraldic shields arranged in panels, and set in suitable
ornamentation of foliage forms and ribbon-work, are found in nearly all
of the more important rooms in the German town-halls. One of the finest
examples of a coloured and carved ceiling is the one which adorns the
Kaiserhalle in the Römer, or town-hall, of Frankfort-on-the-Maine. This
magnificent ceiling is carved in low-relief which gives it a suitable
flat appearance. The rich tinctures of the charges on the shields,
combined with the gold and silver that is used, produce, with the dark
background of the natural brown colour of the wood, an extremely
satisfactory example of refined decoration. This ceiling is certainly
the best of its kind that we can remember to have seen in any German
city. The walls of this magnificent chamber are decorated with good
full-length portraits of the German and Prussian kings and emperors. At
the entrance end of the hall there is a seated figure of Charlemagne, by
Veit, and in the panel above is a wall painting by Steinle with the
subject of “The Judgment of Solomon.” The full-length portrait of
Frederick I (1152-90), is an unusually fine work by Lessing.
Another example of a finely carved and painted ceiling, is that of the
Council Chamber in the Rathaus, or town-hall at Hildesheim. Here also
are seen the heraldic devices, with figures and elaborate scroll-work
which compose the design of this ceiling. The general scheme of the
colouring is rich and deep in tones of red, blue, gold, on the
background of dark brown wood. The walls of this Gothic chamber are
decorated with fine paintings in fresco by H. Prell, begun in 1892. With
the exception of there being too much darkness in some parts, they are
otherwise brilliant and luminous in colour, and may be said to be among
the best examples of fresco technique in Germany.
The interior of the town-hall at Aix-la-Chapelle is admirably decorated,
and in a similar manner to those of Hildesheim and Frankfort. The
Coronation Chamber in this building contains the celebrated historical
fresco paintings by Alfred Rethel, four of which were painted by this
artist, and the other four were designed by Rethel, but painted by
Professor Kehren. The vaulted ceilings and piers are richly decorated in
colour, and windows with stained glass.
The principal staircase walls of the New Museum in Berlin are decorated
with six great frescoes by Kaulbach, representing certain epochs in the
history of mankind. These wall paintings are executed in the water-glass
method of fresco. As wall decorations they are too pictorial in design,
and the treatment, in the matter of colouring and technique, lacks
simplicity. They are over-modelled in their light and shade, and the
colouring presents too many violent contrasts, which greatly injures
their value as monumental examples of legitimate wall decoration.
Wherever white or light yellows occur in the work, these parts of the
painting have evidently become disintegrated, and at present show a
disagreeable chalkiness or bloom. This, together with the presence of
many black and heavy shadows, which appear to have gone darker, if
possible, with age, combine to throw the painting out of tone. In
composition and drawing they are not without grandeur of style, but if
they had been more simple in treatment, and less violent in colour and
light and shade effects, they would be more pleasing as wall
decorations.
In the Hall of the Gods, and in the two adjoining rooms on either side
of the small vestibule in the Glyptothek at Munich there are some
important frescoes by Cornelius, painted in 1820-30. The subjects of
these paintings are classical, and represent the Abode of the Gods, the
Legend of Prometheus, and the Trojan wars, all painted in rich and
brilliant schemes of colour, but bordering on harshness. There is a
great deal of auxiliary decoration in these rooms consisting of good
examples of ornamentation in the Greco-Roman style of Grottesche in
painting and in stucco-reliefs. The new Town-hall of Munich is well
decorated with wall paintings, ornament, and heraldic work. The Council
Chamber has a very large wall painting executed in oil on canvas by
Piloty. The subject is an Allegorical History of Munich, and the
magistrates’ room has paintings by Lindenschmit and is also adorned with
a finely carved and painted ceiling.
One of the finest schemes of modern German decoration is that of the
great staircase of the Albertinum Sculpture Gallery at Dresden. The
frescoes, by H. Prell, on the ceiling and walls have subjects of Greek
mythology and are painted in bright and light schemes of colour, the
general effect being very luminous, and the work is vigorous in
execution. The dado and lower stonework has panels of bronze with
low-relief decoration, and in the corridor of the landing there are some
fine panels in mosaic.
Fresco, mosaic, tiles, and coloured marble have frequently been used, as
the means of obtaining colour decoration on the exteriors of many public
buildings in Germany, in modern times. On the upper part of the façade
of the Kunst-Gewerbe Museum at Berlin there are a fine series of
square-shaped panels containing mosaics in colour on gold grounds,
designed by Professor Ewald, and by Geselchap.
The exterior wall of the Royal Historical Museum at Dresden has an
important decoration, consisting of a long and deep frieze, executed in
a light yellow stone-colour and black on a gold-coloured ground. The
material is a kind of porcelain or tile composition, having a
sgraffito-like treatment. The work was made in the Royal Porcelain
Manufactory at Meissen. The subject of this frieze is a procession of
kings and warriors of Saxony on horseback who ruled from 1170 to 1873,
and who are represented in chronological order.
There are many buildings in Germany that have had their exteriors
decorated with paintings in fresco, but much of this work is now in a
decayed condition. Many modern houses, such as restaurants and shops,
have exterior decorations painted in oil. The outside walls of the Old
(Alt) Museum at Berlin have an extensive arrangement of panels painted
in fresco, having mythological subjects, such as the Labours of
Hercules, etc., but they are now in a dirty and faded condition. As an
example of exterior colouring we might mention the beautiful Gothic
fountain, the Schöne Brunnen, erected about 1360, in the market place of
Nuremberg. This fountain is built in the shape of a pyramid, in a rich
Gothic style; it has, however, been restored several times. It is
decorated with many figures of kings, prophets, apostles, and other
worthies, and is always kept painted in its original colouring of blue,
red, and gold.
We may conclude this review of German coloured decoration of buildings
by a brief notice of some of the painted wood and stone carvings which
are found plentifully in old German churches, and more particularly in
those of Nuremberg. The Church of St. Lawrence at Nuremberg contains
several examples of carved wood altar-pieces in the form of triptychs,
the centre panels of which are carved with scriptural subjects, the
figures being in high relief and painted in rich colours, in order to
harmonise with the colour of the two painted leaves on either side of
it. Hanging from the roof in the centre of this church is the celebrated
circular wood carving by Veit Stoss, all richly coloured and gilt. It
consists of a representation of the Annunciation, and the surrounding
circular frame is of a beautiful design of open work ornamented with
roses, and with seven medallions with representations of the Seven Joys
of the Virgin. In this church there is also a very interesting
fourteenth-century altar-piece in Gothic stone-carving which is erected
in a bay on the left of the east end of the church. It is a good example
of the colouring of the period, and is painted in tints of yellowish-red
and warm green, with a soft dull blue in the background parts, and the
salient points and narrow mouldings are gilt. On many of the structural
parts and mouldings of this Church there are still remains of the
fourteenth and fifteenth century colouring. Remains of similar colouring
are found in many parts of the Church of St. Sebaldus, at Nuremberg,
more particularly on the ribs of the vaults, piers, and ceilings, etc.
In this church may be seen the celebrated Crucifixion with the figures
of the Saviour, the Virgin, and St. John, in carved wood and richly
coloured, which is the work of Veit Stoss (1520). Another example of
painted and gilded wood carving in this church is the statue of the
Madonna (1450) under a canopy of Gothic design.
[Illustration:
_To face p. 112._]
PLATE 26.--EXAMPLE OF DIAPER PATTERN, USED IN ITALIAN, GERMAN AND
ENGLISH DECORATION OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.]
[Illustration:
_To face p. 113._]
PLATE 27.--EXAMPLE OF DIAPER ORNAMENT, USED IN ITALIAN, GERMAN AND
ENGLISH DECORATION OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.]