Anne Wanner-JeanRichard
Textilmuseum / Vadianstrasse 2
CH-9000 St Gallen / Switzerland

General Information:
No 4 / Jan.1997/ 2

You will find a new list of members in this letter with some Fax Nrs.
Please note the new adress of Ruth Groenwoldt. I am grateful for all informations about adress changes.
Edward F. Maeder writes that he will be leaving the Bata Shoe Museum and he wants to go back into textiles and costumes. His new adress is not known yet, but he will be sending more informations soon.

Assenblee Generale du Centre Francais d’Histoire de la Broderie:
Samedi 18 janvier 1997 à 10 heures,
lieu: Federation Francaise des Dentelles et Broderies, 24 rue de Clichy 75 009 Paris
seuls les adherents pourront participer à l’Assemblee Generale, la cotisation est maintenue à 250.00 F pour les adherents et de 500.00 F pour les membres bienfaiteurs.

Meeting in September 1997 and specialist groups: So far there seems to be an interest in the discussion of church embroideries of 17th and 18th c. Could you possibly bring to the conference photographs of important or special vestments of your collection? Which facts are known and what are the questions ?

Ten International Felt and Embroidery artists will be giving workshops during the period of
4th to 10th April 1997
for more information please contact:
Convenor Joan Braganza PO Box 121 Reigate Surrey RH2 9YU Fax 44+1737 245587

Art of the stitch: 17.6.-27.7.1997 open to everybody
in Barbican Centre London, organized by Embroiderers Guild,
Apt. 41, Hampton Court Palace, East Molesey, Surrey KT8 9AU, England

- Nov 6th 1996 to October 1997: Cashmere shawls (there are some embroidered pieces as well)

- March 20th 1997 to February 28th 1998: Embroideries from Zagreb to Istanbul

embroidery technique: drawn-thread work
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford Department of Eastern Art
No 4 / Jan.1997/ 3

contribution by Marianne Ellis:
remains of roundel: 18cm x 14cm.
linen, plainweave, embroidered with red, blue and yellow silk thread

This roundel is from the Newberry collection of Islamic embroideries. It came either from an excavation or from rubbish dumps and was acquired by Professor P.Newberry, the Egyptologist, in the 1920s or 1930s. The scrolling leaf design appears on tapestry woven fabrics from the Coptic period but here it has been embroidered in the technique known as "laid and couched by a couched line". Some other fragments in the collection worked in this way, also in red silk, have designs that suggest they are from the late 13, early 14c.

Originally the roundel would been highly decorative in appearance with its central openwork in yellow and blue silk embroidery surrounded by a red silk scrolling border. The drawn-thread work in the centre of this roundel is the only one worked precisely this way in the collection (see diagram) although there are other examples of drawn-thread work.

If anyone has similar roundels or comments to make about the classification of openwork techniques, please contact me c/o Department of Eastern Art.

embroidery technique: drawn-thread work
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford Department of Eastern Art
No 4 / Jan.1997/ 4

Samplers of Dresdenwork: pulled threadwork
Kunstgewerbemuseum in Dresden
No 4 / Jan.1997/ p.5

Prof Bleckwenn is studying the Dresdenwork embroideries and she sent the following examples. Some differences are very obvious, but there are no clear results so far. Ruth Bleckwenn hopes that more research will give a more definite datation of the pieces.

Inv.No 14982, 28cm x 28 cm, netlike surface decoration

Inv.No 364, 17cm x 26cm, pattern more dense

Inv.No 365, 24cm x 2cm, date 1771, alphabet and date in cross stitch

Inv.No 366. 22.5cm x 22.5cm, date 1767 ?

embroidery technique: pulled threadwork
Textilmuseum St Gallen, Switzerland
No 4 / Jan.1997/ 6

In the Textilmuseum St Gallen there are a number of embroidered table cloths similar to the London example, published in Newsletter No 3. The earliest of these table cloths of the Textilmuseum can have been worked in the end of 19th cent., others are much later, probably up to the 1930’s. The earlier ones are worked with very fine material and some of them copy exactly well known prints of the time, like for instance illustrations of Faust by Goethe.
The fine whitework embroidery of Switzerland is mentioned in many reports and catalogues of world exhibitions from 1851-1914.

The Museum of Appenzell (eastern Switzerland) shows in its exhibition some samplers with pulled threadwork. They can be dated to the second half of 19th cent., as the dates of life of some of the embroiderers are known.

Detail of Sampler, end of 19th cent, Swiss, Appenzell , Textilmuseum St Gallen, TM 20213, pulled threadwork, Cat.Nr. 214, 15 x 11cm

Detail of sampler, Swiss, Appenzell, 2nd half of 19th cent., made by Mrs M.Antonia Faessler-Doerig (1827-1908), Museum of Appenzell, pulled threadwork, 10 x 7cm

Narodni Muzej, Ljublijana
question about vestments
No 4 / Jan.1997/ 7

reported by AW
The curator of Narodni Muzej, Ljubljana, Mrs Gojka Pajagic-Bregar, is doing research work on the following vestments. She has many similar examples in the store rooms of the museum and she is looking for literature and for any information about workshop, maybe somewhere in the Alp region.

chasuable around 1700, Ljubliana

chasuable around 1700, Ljubliana

Textilmuseum St.Gallen, Switzerland
question about vestments
No 4 / Jan.1997/ 8

Ecclesiastical filofloss embroidery

The Textile museum St Gallen has in its collection an Altarfrontal worked in the same technique as the vestments of Ljubljana. Similar embroideries can be found in Raetisches Museum at Chur and also in some churches of the Swiss Cantons of Grisons and St Gallen.
However so far no evidence of a workshop or of embroiderers is known.
If the embroidery style looks familiar to you, or if you know of any workshop probably somewhere in the Alp region, the curator of Narodni Muzej Ljubljana and me too, would be very interested of any suggestion.

chasuable around 1700, Canton of Grisons
Raetisches Museum Chur, Nr. XII 2.3

detail from Altar frontal, Switzerland 17th c.
Textilmuseum St Gallen, TM 24066

question: wool work design
Margaret Swain, Edinburgh
No 4 /Jan.1997/ 9

This collection of pictures in cross-stitch on canvas was worked around 1838-40. Some of the designs were bought in Belgium.
What nationality is the Postboy? Does anyone know where the charts for these designs originated? They are not British, nor apparently German. Margaret Swain would be glad of any suggestions.

Musee Historique des Tissus, Lyon
New Acquisition in 1996
No 4 / Jan.1997/ 10

Dediee à la duchesse d’Angoulême, cette broderie a ete realisee à Lyon par Jenny Larue en mai 1816, d’apres une estampe marquee du 3 mai 1814 dont l’idee fut donnee en 1799 par un prelat de l’eglise gallicane refugie en Espagne. Elle prône le retablissement de la religion et de la monarchie apres les desastres de la Revolution française. Au registre inferieur, agenouilles de part et d’autre de la Foi, Louis XVIII et Pie VI devant la barque de l’Eglise et de Saint-Pierre de Rome; au registre central, la Vierge, les saintes reines de France et les fondatrices de la Visitation et des Carmelites, saint Louis et Charlemagne; au registre superieur, les sept piliers de la Sagesse et la Sainte-Trinite. Un excepionnel cadre en bois dore et stuque participe au programme, aux armes des rois de France et de la ville de Lyon.

book review: Embroidery in Britain
Donald King, Santina Levey
No 4 / Jan.1997/ 11

Exhibition Hermitage
Catalogue 1996
No 4 / Jan.1997/ 12

decorative Art in the 19th century
Conference in St Peterburg
No 4 / Jan.1997/ 13

Anne Wanner attended the conference in St Petersburg, here my report:
he first part was dedicated to National and International Architecture of Historism. Special attention was given to foreign influences in Architecture. Reports were given on:

- mages of Ancient Egypt in the Architecture of St.Petersburg
- Pompeijan Style in Russian Architecture
- Chinoiseries in the Bath-house of Montplaisir in Peterhof
- Bridges in the Tsarskoye Selo Parks
- Then there were examinations of interiors of the 19th century:
- Historism in Stroganov Palace
- Decoration of the Living Rooms in the Palace of Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich
- the Historism Principles in the Decorations of the Interiors in the Massandra Palace of Alexandre III

- There followed reports on some special objects of the 19th century:
- Art Porcelain by A. Miklashevsky’s Factory and the French-Russian-Ukrainian contacts in the first half of 19th century
- Faience by the Poskochin’s Factroy
- Watch mechanism in 19th century

- Then there were some reports on textiles:
- Historism in Costume of the 1830s - 1890s
- Tapestry weaving in France in the Epoch of Historism
- here my report on embroidery in Eastern Switzerland in the 19th century was integrated

Church of the Resurrection of Christ, in memoriam of the assassination of Zar Alexander II in 1881