Swain 1980

Swain, Margaret. Figures on Fabrice=: Embroidery design sources and their application. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1980.

Franz Cleyn (or Clein) (1582-1658), German born designer working in Mortlake workshop; tapestry depicting Hero and Leaner; also "painted mural decorations in some of the great houses and drew plates for books, such as the large folios of the work of Virgil published by John Ogilby" (14)

Wenceslas Holla (1602-77), produced maps, series of women's costumes, other subjects for prints; "they could be used, like other engravings, as pattern sources by silversmiths, wood or stone carvers, as well as pattern drawers for needlework to be executed in a workroom or in the home" (14)

prints were transportable medium, easily translated; e.g. small statue of bagpiper by Gianbologna is derived fom a Durer engraving; series of engravinges call The Creation (1604) by j. Sanredam after drawings by Abraham Bloemart were adapted as oil paintings by Spanish artists Alonso Cano and Juano Antonio de Frias Escalante (14-5)

1747 describing the work of the pattern drawer in the London Tradesman

end of the 18th century, trade was opened to females; still, no evidence of girls being admitted to the trade schools, had to be taught through private instruction

Mary Queen of Scots, source for emblems: Conrad Gesner's illustrations from Edward Topsell, Historie of Four-Footed Beasts (1607); Pierre Belon ,La Nature et Diversite des Poissaons and L'Historie de la Nature des Oyseaux (1555); Pietro Andrea Matthioli, commentary on Dioscorides' Materia medica (26)

dolphin pun (27)

Mellerstain panels; worked in 1706 by Grisell and Rachel Baillie, daughters of Lady Grisell Baillie, under supervision of their governess May Menzies, who had inherited the book from her grandmother (32) -- from a book published in 1630, containing engravings made as early as 1592

"It may be that some of these printsellers also sold linen or satin already drawn for embroidery, since the motives on the many small needlework pictures, satin cabinets, and mirror frames, show the same flowers, birds and insects as those on the printed sheets. The draughtsman who re-drew these motives from the engravings of other publishers would find no difficulty in drawing them on fabric instead of paper. Unfinished pieces show the inked lines, drawn in with a sure hand." (35)

1553, picture bible produced in Lyons, Quadrins de la Bible, published by Jean de Tournes, with woodcuts by Bernard Salomon (41); popular source for needlework; MET has a set of three bed valances with Genesis copied from Salomon

embroidered book uses woodcuts from Salomon as a source (42-3)

de Jode, Thesaurus Sacrarum Historiarum Veteris Testamenti (1585)

set of 8 chairs at Lever Gallery, copied from de Jode

needlework seems to be copied from painting; but painting couldn't have been seen; difficult to determine engraved source

"Although it may be confidently asserted that all the domestic needlework designs showing scriptural subjects worked in the seventeenth cnad eighteenth centuries must derive from prints, copied by a pattern drawer who may not have been skilled at figure drawing, it is impossible to be dogmatic as to the precise engraving that is followed. This is because the engravers themselves borrowed freely from other publications, sometimes line for line, sometimes in mirror image, often taking the central figures and placing them in a different landsape." (48)

pirated engravings; Visscher's Biblia Sacra (Amsterdam, 1660), reproduces many of de Jodes Antwerp engravings of 1585

Salomon also illustrated Metamorphose d'Ovide figuree (Lyons); used as source, including for a needlework by Bess of Hardwick

scriptural subjects on tapestries going out of fashion by the end of the 17c (57)

18c, engravings of actors; "dressed prints" -- costumes covered with "meticulously cut snippets of silk and velvet pasted on to the paper to give realism to the portrait" (68)

19c, toy theatres, come with tinsel to dress the actors with crowns and armor

patchwork made by men mid-19c: take small scraps from tailors' workroom and turn them into patchwork bedcovers and tablecloths; done as a hobby, like marquetry in wood but the cloth is not stuck to the foundation; prints as sources; "It would appear that the print was cut up and the various shapes used as templates for the meticulously cut cloth." (73)

Menzies Moffat (1829-1907), tailor, artist and photographer; Royal Crimean Hero Tablecover; uses 81 prints as a source; "Moffat wrote the story of his life in a wallpaper pattern book" (75) <-- it's been destroyed

Royal Clothograph

"Those likely to buy these books [pattern books] were not simple country women, but ladies like Catherine de Medici and Bess of hardwick; ladies who had in their households a professional embroiderer, or someone able to draw out the designs for them to work." (79)

first pattern book in English: W. Vosterman's A neawe treatys as concerning the excellency of the nedle worke spannisshe stitches and weaving in the frame (Antwerp, 1530); version of Quentel's pattern book, only one copy known in the Arsenal Library, Paris

Morysse and Damashin renewed and encreased Very profitable for Goldsmythes and Embroderers by Thomas Geminus (London, 1548), 2.5x3", only known copy at Landesmuseum in Munster, Germany

La Clef des Champs, 1586, dedicated to Mary Sidney, designed by Frenchman but published in London

Shoreleyker, first native product; 1624 and 1632 edition, but probably earlier ones too

Henrietta Cumming, 18c governess; manuscript book of patterns "sow that many of the designs for lappets, fichus and ruffles, drawn out by Henrietta and the girls, were used for embroidery, and were by no means essays in drawing. Many are stitched around the edges, where the muslin has been tacked over the inked designs." -- letters often asking for supplies (86)

other early 19c pattern books listed on pg 88

manuscript of patterns with maxims and sententiae written on the back in copperplate handwriting (91)

18c, Mrs. Condy's advertisements in the Boston News Letter, for sale at her shop (93)

parchment lace, using paper or vellum backing; Mary Quelch, 1609, sampler of lace fillings; see Swain, Historical Needlework, pg. 54 (103)

printing patterns with wooden blocks; some are from as early as 17c (110)