Swain, Margaret: Figures on Fabric - embroidery design sources and their application

Swain, Margaret: Figures on Fabric - embroidery design sources and their application

£35.00

Swain, Margaret: Figures on Fabric - embroidery design sources and their application

SKU 14847 Category

Description

Adam & Charles Black 1st 1980 large 8vo, blue bds
with silver titling to spine + silver titling in black cartouche to fr bd, v min wr to d/w o/w VG++/VG++
(Order reference 14847).

Figures on Fabric is the first book to examine the origins of designs chosen for embroidery. It provides answers to the fascinating question 'Where did artists, pattern drawers and talented amateur needlewomen like Mary Queen of Scots find their inspiration?' The author traces numerous designs to their printed sources among Bible illustrations, theatrical prints, books of natural history and classical mythology, as well as pattern books and magazine inserts.

Many of the pieces illustrated come from private or foreign collections, and are shown with the woodcuts or engravings from which they derive. The traditional methods of transferring these designs to the fabric are also described and illustrated.

The book contains full references for further reading, and will be particularly valuable for art students and others engaged in textile studies, museum curators and collectors. For the general reader it gives a fascinating background to the many handsome pieces of needlework still surviving in churches, museums and historic houses, while the amateur needlewoman will find in it the answer to some of the problems of transferring her ideas on to cloth using modern aids.

The jacket illustration is from a needlework screen worked by Julia, Lady Calverley, at Wallington Hall, Northumberland, a property of the National Trust.