We looked last night at a number of Perugia Towels or Cloths and tonight I can tell you that there are two of these splendid cloths for sale at an upcoming auction at Christie's in London on 25 February. Both cloths have a Leopold Iklé collection provenance. The first cloth shown here is Lot 311 and it is believed to be 17th century. It measures 44 x 20 in. (112 x 50 cm.) and has an estimate of £1,000 – £2,000.
It is worked with herringbone weave and has mythological animals, hares, and inscription text.
What is particularly interesting are those inscription texts which alternate with their reverses, so that each side of the cloth will have text reading the right way - a nifty ploy if you are thinking of making a double sided sampler. Above you can see the word
amour followed by a flower head and then the word
amour in reverse.
(Well it is nearly St Valentine's Day, isn't it?)
The second cloth below is Lot 301 and is an earlier cloth from the 15th century.
It measures 18 x 19 in. (46 x 48 cm.)and also has an estimate of £1,000 – £2,000. Below you can see a detail and hopefully make out how the pattern is darned using what appears to be a standard building block of 3 threads x 3 threads . Where there are long horizontal runs - for instance across the bird's neck and body, the potentially long runs of horizontal stitches are broken up into smaller runs that are offset obliquely on each subsequent row.
For more details of the sale, click here.
