Embroideries
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has an early seventeenth century sample book from Portugal (MMA 25.92). It is filled with numerous small pieces of actual embroidery worked on a linen ground using silk yarns in various colours.
Aloe thread embroidery is a product introduced in Britain in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Aloe thread embroidery was made with the threads from the aloe plant (genus Aloe; family Xanthorrhoeaceae).
Arrasene, or Arasene embroidery, is a form of chenille embroidery, which was popular in the late nineteenth century and used for curtain borders, mantelpiece borders or screens, at places where the fine Arrasene material was unlikely to get damaged. Arrasene embroidery is known to have been worked in tent stitch on canvas, or in stem stitch or crewel stitch on velvet or serge, or with couching as braid work.
Assisi embroidery is a form of counted thread work. It is characterised by a background filled with embroidery stitches and the main motifs left as voids (see negative design), without stitching. The background stitches include cross stitch, herringbone stitch and long and short cross stitch. The main motifs are often outlined with stem stitch.
The Late Latin term auriphrygium derives from aurum ('gold') and Phrygius ('Phrygian').
Ayrshire whitework, or Ayrshire work (from the county of Ayrshire, southwest Scotland), is a form of embroidery in fine muslin, decorated with fine lace filling stitches using a very fine thread with the main design in satin stitch and beading stitch.
Baldyring is a form of whitework embroidery using drawn thread and counted thread techniques. It developed in Denmark in the Hedebo tradition in the nineteenth century. Baldyring finds its inspiration in the fifteenth century reticella needlework. From c. 1835, the technique was used for pillow cases, shifts, shirts, towels, cradle sheets, knædug (a pole for drying socks over a stove) and the door posts of wall cupboards.
Bargello (or bargello work) is an American term for Florentine work. The name bargello originates from the Bargello Palace, Florence (Italy), where there are a series of seventeenth century chairs upholstered with canvas embroidery in this technique. It should be noted that the term bargello can refer to both the embroidery technique and the finished appearance of the work.
Belgravian embroidery is a late nineteenth century English term to describe a braid decorated with bugle beads.
The region of Bereg lies in what is now northeastern Hungary and the adjoining parts of Ukraine. Its recent history is complicated. Until the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, the capital of the region was Berehove (Beregszász). In 1920 much of the region was ceded to Czechoslovakia, with the southern part remaining in Hungary.
Making artificial flowers in Berlin wool was a fashionable pursuit in mid-nineteenth century Europe and North America.
Berlin wool work, or briefly Berlin work, is a style of embroidery that is normally associated with the use of woollen yarn (tapestry yarn) on canvas. Berlin wool work was usually worked with the help of embroidery charts in a single stitch, notably cross stitch or tent stitch.
Blackwork is a form of counted thread embroidery that uses a black thread (usually silk or cotton) on a white cloth background. Blackwork is usually carried out in a double running stitch (Holbein stitch). The patterns produced tend to be geometric or stylised figurative and plant forms. Blackwork was very popular in Europe during the sixteenth century and has been revived at regular intervals since then.
Bluework is the term for any form of Western decorative needlework that is exclusively worked in a blue thread on a white or natural coloured ground. This style of embroidery became popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There was also a resurgence in its popularity at the end of the twentieth century.
From the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, Bohemia was known for the production of applied pearl embroidery.
The Boston fishing lady embroidery series is a popular name given to a series of embroidered pictures dating to the mid-eighteenth century, some of which feature women fishing. Such embroidered images were popular in the Boston (Mass.) region of the USA and were made by female members of prominent New England families attending various Boston boarding schools, as a ‘certificate’ of their embroidery skills.
Breton work is a form of embroidery that was popular in the 1870's and 1880's in Northern Europe and North America. Breton work uses a machine-made net. It is thus sometimes classed as a form of embroidered net lace. Its name is derived from traditional Breton embroidery (France), which was often used on both men and women’s regional dress.
Broderie anglaise is a form of open whitework embroidery. It is also classed as a form of cutwork lace. Depending on the pattern, broderie anglaise may also be classed as an embroidered lace. Broderie anglaise became popular in the latter half of the nineteenth century, especially for women's and children’s clothing.