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Buratto Embroidery

Example of 19th century Buratto embroidery. Example of 19th century Buratto embroidery. TRC collection.

Buratto embroidery is named after buratto cloth, which in its turn is named after buratto, an Italian word for a sieve or sifter. Buratto embroidery is worked on an open, even-weave cloth (buratto cloth) with a single warp and a double weft. The ground has a square mesh (see lacis). Designs are worked in running stitch and may be counted or drawn directly onto the net. Buratto embroidery can be classed as an embroidered lace.

Some of the earliest written references to buratto embroidery are found in a pattern book called Il Burato, Libro de Recami ('Buratto, a Book of Embroidery'), which was published by Alessandro Paganino in 1518 (reprinted in 1527 and 1538). Another buratto pattern book was published by Matio (Matteo) Pagano in Venice, in 1559. Examples of seventeenth century buratto work were often embroidered with coloured silks. It was popular in the nineteenth century to copy earlier examples and it can be difficult to distinguish older from the newer versions.

See also a sixteenth century stroke of buratto embroidery from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam

Source: EARNSHAW, Pat (1984). A Dictionary of Lace, Aylesbury: Shire Publications, p. 26.

GVE

Last modified on Saturday, 15 October 2016 11:45