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| Silk velvet woven with gold thread ca. 1200-1300 Italy, probably a Silk Road import Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Silk woven with gilded parchment wrapped on linen core ca. 1300-1400 Italy Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Silk velvet brocade ca. 1475-1500 Italy Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
SILK – The strong, soft, lustrous fibre produced by the larvae of certain bombycine moths which feed upon mulberry leaves.
Oft did she heave her Napkin to her eyne
Which on it had conceited characters,
Laundring the silken figures in the brine . . .
– William Shakespeare, Lover's Complaint, 1597
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A huffing wench, whose ruffling silks
Make with their motion music unto love . . .
– Anonymous, How a man may chuse a good wife from a bad, a pleasant conceited comedie, wherein 'tis shewed, 1602
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Spinning Worms, that in their green shops weave the smooth-haired silk . . .
– John Milton, Comus, 1634
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The maiden's chamber,
Silken, hush'd and chaste.
– John Keats, The Eve of St. Agnes, 1820
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He who has little silver in his pouch must have the more silk on his tongue.
– Edward Bulwer-Lytton, The Last of the Barons, 1843
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| Silk velvet ca. 1500 Italy Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Silk woven with gold wrapped on silk core ca. 1500-1600 Italy Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Silk woven with metal foil wrapped on silk core ca. 1575-1625 Italy Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Silk embroidery on linen base, depicting Sacrifice of Isaac ca. 1575-1625 Italy Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Silk needlepoint on linen net ca. 1600-1700 Italy Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Silk velvet ca. 1600-1700 Italy Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Silk velvet, wool, metallic trim, on Corporal (for altar use) ca. 1600-1700 Italy Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Silk embroidery on linen net ca. 1600-1700 Italy Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Silk satin with corded silk ca. 1600-1700 Italy Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Silk ca. 1600-1700 Italy Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Silk-linen brocatelle ca. 1600-1700 Italy Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
Citations from the Oxford English Dictionary.