The V&A owns these three pieces, Not much has been known other than they were German and late 13th Century. All three are solid glass seed beadwork on parchment with ink underdrawings, but that is there the simlairity ends.

The pointed piece on the right which is presumed to be part of an Orphrey, featuring he Virgin Mary. The squares and the Orphrey remant are NOT related despite sometimes being shown together.

I have never believed the right piece, the pointed longer one, belongs with the squares, and as it turned out from looking at copies of the file sheets on each it was stated they were acquired a year apart. Having seen them mere inches away in the flesh I can say my long suspicions I that I think they are from the same area in Germany around the same time, but are not done by the same person and not for the same piece. The styles are too divergent (the heads face opposite directions, for just a start).

As a result, I have put the long piece on it's own page where I discuss it since I have seen it in person. (link coming soon)

To see detailed closeup photos taken during my 2002 visit to
the V&A of these pieces, click here (members only)

Back to the saints squares:
When searching in Halberstadt's museum listing at Bildindex I discovered many new pieces of beadwork I hadn't seen before, one of them was a familiar looking textile fragment likely from a edging for an altar or wall hanging also called an "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 beaded on a square parchment. As thin the V&A pieceand many others) the face of the saint was picked bare of it's pearls, but it's obvious that there were round shapes that had been removed (the attachment stitches at still intact). After seeing this kind of thing in many other beaded pieces I'm sure that there were large round stamped gold foil decorative pictorial Brakteat (bezants) of nearly 5" in size that were snipped at the punched holes in the metal and removed from the intact threads.

This is my digitally recontructed example of what this edging might have looked like complete with the two squares from the V&A in London.

Ladies and Gents, I present...

Robin has as you can see has an almost identical design as Barry sans the sexy beard and famous 'Something About Mary' Hair-Do.

His corners aren't filled with any shapes as Maurice's are, but his halo is the same as Maurice.

While Robin is not a great shot there are clear highlights to match lines up with.

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 Bee Gees phase growing up I never liked Maurice. So there.

The pictures demonstrate the simalarities using all three saints.

Key:
B=Barry
R=Robin
M=Maurice

While not exact (it's impossible to match exactly with beadwork) it's clear looking at the composite pictures that they are the same size, but are designed and sewn by the same hands. Each beadworker works their beads differently, so to see multiple simliarties in the pieces in different locations is encouraging.

The angle of the faces, the colors, the three rows of gold beads on the border, the neckline, the cape, the two tone striping of the hair.the design of the eye, the rosy dots on the cheeks. These guys are truly brothers.

This is a great example of the Robin (R) and Barry (B) pieces. (The Barry picture is one I took during my V&A visit, thus the angle.) What this shows is that the beads are the same size and the scale of the pieces is the same, it also shows the same working style. The way the corners are worked is, for me, the clincher. As I said every beadworker works differntly, and to see such a dead match for the number of rows in the blue and the way the rows are filled, the way the gold lines and the halos match up, - well thats all the is all the proof I personally need. Everything meshes.

I am 100% postive that Barry and Maurice at the V&A were originally on the textile fragment at the Halberstadr Dom Museum with Robin. Perhaps that's one Beegees reunion that can happen someday.