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The V&A owns
these three pieces, and has since 1863 when they were fdonated
by a German woman named Bock. Not much has been known other
than they were German and 13th Century. I discovered a photo
on a German language musuem artwork site, a huge index of
over one millions photos of works of art. It's a daunting
place to look for things.
I have never believed the right piece, the
pointed longer one, belongs with the squares, and as it
turned out they were acquired a year apart. I think they
are from the same area, but are not by the same person
and not for the same piece. Having seem them mere inches
away in the flesh I can say the design and working style
are just too dissimilar.
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Click pic to enlarge
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When searching
in Halberstadt's museum listing I discovered many new pieces
of beadwork I hadn't seen before, one of them was a textile
fragment likely from a cloth for an altar or wall hanging "antipendium".
Almost immediately I knew what i was seeing
It features a band of silk the bottom has tassles capped
with beaded roundels and in the center one very lonely,
yet familar looking saint made from a square of beaded
parchment... |
 I am attmepting
to judge size to verify these are infact from the same item. I
thought since they are so simliar, I'd show my work on this
problem. All pieces were reduced and rotated to fit with
in set dimensions using guide lines. So getting the pics
to all be roughly the same size was key place to start to
see if the are actually the same size in real life. Someone
is gonna ask me to prove it, so here. Enjoy.
THEORY: If
the number of beaded rows to fill two identical shaped
areas is (roughtly) the same, they should
be in theory be the same size. If it
was a bigger piece reduced down to match a smaller piece
in dimensional size the largerwould have more visiable
rows of beads than the smaller piece becasue in reality while
the beads are the same size there is more area to fill and
would require more beads I more rows to complete it. Make
sense?
I also figured since they have
started to look familar now I have have named them after
three brothers whom they resemble to make referring to them
easier. Ladies and Gents, I present - |
| Barry one is most simliar
to Robin over in Germany so this is the one I used to establish
they are from the same hand.
The easiest way to show the rows of bead was
to take the clearest one, (Barry here) and draw over the
lines of his rows. I did it in red as you can see.
The number of rows around the halo and the
way the corners have been filled (I'd called it mitered if
it were woodwork) are our keys here judging Robin's size using
barry as our guide. |
Robin has as you can see has an almost
identical design as Barry sans the sexy beard and can of
aquanet.
His corners aren't filled with any shapes as Maurice's
are, but his halo is the same as his bald twin's
Instead of
redrawing the lines of Robin's beads and going blind, I
overlayed Barry's bead outline on Robin's rows, which I think
proves the case better than anything else could. While Robin
is not a great shot there are clear highlights to match lines
up with.
The pictures below demonstrate the simalarities.
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Since Maurice lives with Barry in London, and I've visited
them both in person and can vouch (as the picture above can)
that they are the same size and "match" in all the right
ways, as it were. He's mainly here to fill out my theme and
look pretty.
Besides, when
I was in my Beegees phase growing up I never liked Maurice.
So there.
If anyone has a clue what saints these guys are suposed
to be, let me know. I'm guessing Barry is Jesus from the
super fancy halo and divne duds, but I've been known to be
wrong a time or two.
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