Friday, August 10, 2007

Embroidery Help

I know that there are a few embroiders who look at my blog. I am seeking some help with this 15th Burgundian piece.

The institution questions its attribution and thinks that it might be Swiss in origin. Somehow I sincerely doubt that the Swiss of the 1470s would create anything for Charles the Bold considering their less that amicable dealings. The arms depicted are the Valois arms of Burgundy; Philip the Good, late in his reign at the earliest and Charles at the latest.

To see a larger version of this image, go to the following URL.

http://www.bildindex.de/bilder/fmc655142b.jpg

To get to the largest image, you need to go to the www.bildindex.de/bilder/ and search the term: Stickerei

This will present a page with other examples of embroidery. Scroll down and click on the fire stryker image. Then click enlarge to get the full size image.

The questions I have specifically are, what embroidery technique(s) are employed? And what types of thread? Are they gold and silver?

The description, at least on this site is not very helpful. I may have to consult "Die Burgunderbeute" as this piece does appear in it. I'm just not up on my technical German. I will post the information from the book later today when I have access to it.

Any discussion is most welcome.

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4 comments:

Machteld said...

Hi Jen,

that's a fascinating piece of embroidery! How big is it? Do you know where it is now? Is there any catalogue from that institute or muesum that might have more info?

I can't really help you with it, I'm afraid..

Gold and silver thread were usually 'couched', see info here:
http://medieval.webcon.net.au/technique_stitches.html#laid_couched

The same picture is also featured here. Sometimes it helps to find pictures or descriptions of similar pieces too:

http://medieval.webcon.net.au/period_15th_c.html


Laren does a lot of heraldic embroidery too, I love her blog. Maybe she knows more

http://laren.blogspot.com/

Good luck!

Jenn said...

Thanks, I appreciate it.

The piece appears in a 1960s catalog called "Die Burgunderbuete". The image is smaller and in b/w. I will pull the description and see if I can translate it from German.

I do have a much larger image, but it's faded over 500 years and I can't tell if the thread is worn away and exposing the backing or if the thread is silver and reflecting the light.

I will check out Laren's blog.

I believe the piece is at the Berne museum.

Gina-B said...

Hi Jenn
It looks as though it primarily gold and silver work as Macheld said - couched, with much of it onto a linen or similar ground and then sewn, as appilique pieces, onto the dark ground. I think this is why you can see 'waves' in some of the rays and fleur de lys motifs and because of the thread around the edges of each motif. I think that the red lion/leopard is applique too - in a red velvet, at least there appears to be a pile and as far as I'm aware piled embroidery stitches are in use much later.

The thinner lines around the fleur de lys for instance appear to be simply lines of a metallic couched down to the dark ground.

All guesswork as the images aren't really clear enough to really make an assumption. And one part of the text translated as 'textile art' which isn't very helpful...

I'd suspect the cord around the edge has been added later, and it would be interesting to see if there was any restoration work or changes made to it in the Victorian period (Often done with textiles for fancy dress, etc) as they sometimes 'fix' things that weren't broken and totally confuse what you are looking at. I think that the double-spun cord is a later devlopment (18th c); but don't quote me on that, I haven't done enough full research into cordspinning.

Jenn said...

When I get home I'll put up the description from DIE BURGUNDERBUETE. It is much more descriptive than what appears on that web site. I've also taken the larger image and used a sharpen filter in Photoshop which seems to have enhanced the stitches quite a bit.

I appreciate the discussion. :)