in its
border, is to be seen in a painting by Marc Gheeraedts of the conference
at old Somerset House of English and Spanish plenipotentiaries (1604),
now in the National Portrait Gallery, London. A more important and
finer carpet belongs to the Girdlers' Company (Plate IV. fig. 8), and
is of Persian design, into which are introduced the arms of the company,
shields with eagles, and white panels with English letters, the monogram
of Robert Bell the master in 1634, but this was made at Lahore[3] to his
order.

Spanish carpets.

Before dealing with later phases of the carpet industry in England,
mention may now be made of Spanish carpets, of European as distinct from
Saracenic or Persian design; the making of them dates at least from the
end of the 15th century or the beginning of the 16th century. It is only
within recent years that specimens of them have been obtained for public
collections, and at present little is known of the factories in Spain
whence they came. A large and most interesting series is shown in the
Victoria and Albert Museum, and a portion of one of the earlier of the
Spanish cut pile carpets in that museum is given in Plate IV. fig. 10.
The inner repeating pattern has suggestions of a lingering Moorish
influence, but a superior version of it with better definition is to be
seen in extant bits of Spanish shuttle-woven silks of the 16th century.
The border of distorted dragon-like creatures is of a Renaissance style,
and this style is more pronounced in other Spanish carpets having
borders of poorly treated Italian 16th-century pilaster ornament. Beside
cut pile, many Spanish carpets of the 17th and 18th centuries have
looped and flat surfaces, and bear Spanish names and inscriptions; many
too are of needlework in tent or cross stitch.

Polish carpets

Another interesting class of very fine pile carpets that has also become
known comparatively recently to collectors is the so-called Polish
carpets, generally made of silk pile for the ornament, which is
distinctively Oriental, and of gold and silver thread textile for the
ground, very much after the manner of early 17th-century Brusa fabrics.
Many of these carpets are in the Czartoryski collection at Cracow. They
are discussed by Dr Bode in his treatise on Oriental carpets already
referred to. European coats of arms of the persons for whom they were
made are often introduced into them, sometimes different in workmanship
from that of the car