Earlier in the chapter, Ruskin has described a visionary moment when he saw the 'rejoicing trees of La Riccia' as being like the curtains of the tabernacle which God commanded Moses to build: 'make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet' (Exodus 26.1). Later in the Old Testament, Solomon's temple - Ruskin's favourite and richest sign of mediation between heaven and earth, God and man - has a 'blue, and purple, and crimson' curtain (II Chronicles 3.11). (See Ruskin and religion and Wheeler, Ruskin's God, pp.20-26, 37).