Redwork became popular in northwestern Europe during the sixteenth century, although it never reached the heights of its near identical form, blackwork, which used a black rather than a red thread. This redwork should be distinguished from later redwork, which stands for any form of Western decorative needlework that is exclusively worked in a red thread on a white or natural coloured ground. This redwork became popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At the end of the twentieth century redwork again became popular.
See also the TRC Needles entries on bluework and the Portrait of Bess of Hardwick.
Metropolitan Museum of Art online catalogue (retrieved 6th July 2016).
GVE