Pretty much everything that Jane said below :). I would add George W. Digby's "Elizabethan Embroidery (Faber & Faber, 1963) for a good broader perspective on blackwork and embroidery in the latter 16th C. Mamluk is a MUST! I don't have the titles in front of me but I think a couple of books by Kathleen Epstein/Staples touch on this too. Catherine At 01:43 PM 1/05/2008, you wrote: >Ages ago I forwarded a question about blackwork to this list on behalf of a >colleague. You folks were very helpful, so I'm >coming back with an add-on query. > >My colleague has continued her work and is approaching it from a different >angle now, and for background, she needs to bring herself up to speed on >what's known about embroidery in late medieval and early modern Western >Europe, especially England. She is especially interested in seeing how >blackwork fits into that context. > >She asks for recommendations of good published sources that will give her a >sense of what blackwork is and when it was done, based on specific examples >(art, documents, and especially surviving artifacts). She needs sources she >can cite in a formal paper, so Web sites will not do. Neither will how-to >books that include a little historical background (e.g. that something was >done in X century) but do not provide sources or evidence. > >She particularly needs definitions: What specific characteristics lead >historians to class the needlework on a 1550 shirt (for example) in the >category of "blackwork" style (as the term is understood), while another >example of embroidery that happens to be black would not be considered >"blackwork"? A source that explains the stitches, motifs, patterns, etc. that >are routinely associated by historians with the >term "blackwork" would be great. Such a beasty doesn't really exist. There isn't one or even two books that cover all this area. And not many articles either, not academic ones anyway. General History of European Embroidey at this time: Bridgeman, Harriet; and Drury, Elizabeth. (eds). ? ?Needlework, an Illustrated History?, (London: Paddington Press, 1978) - section on Great Briton Schuette, Marie and M?ller-Christensen, Sigrid. ?The Art of Embroidery? (London: Thames and Hudson, 1964) Blackwork History/Techniques Some of the best background about Blackwork comes from a how-to book: Gostelow, Mary. Blackwork. (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1976) Geddes, Elisabeth, and Moyra McNeill. Blackwork Embroidery. (New York: Dover, 1976) I also have a handout which describes what I consider to be the three main types of blackwork during the Elizabethan period with examples and details for find original institutions hold the egs. See "Embroidery for Clothing - Non-Counted Blackwork" under "Class Handouts" on http://needleprayse.webcon.net.au/research/index.html
>(I realize that some people could argue that you can call almost anything >monochrome "blackwork" if you stretch the definition far enough, but she's >interested in what's traditionally assumed by the accepted definitions, not >ways to revise it.) One thing to remember, most sources are heavily biased towards looking at early period Blackwork ie early Tudor under Henry VIII. You can find alot about that but much less about the later period stuff. Really there aren't any standard definitions of what constitutes blackwork. >I am not asking anyone here to answer those questions for her ... even if you >did, she'd still need published authorities she can cite in a formal paper. >And she really needs to get up to speed on this on her own, and do her own >reading. So all I'm bothering you folks for are recommendations for >academic-quality reference books. She'll be getting them ILL, so cost and >availability are not issues. > >Bonus points if you can also point her to a good overview source on known >embroidery styles from, say, 1300-1600, based on surviving pieces, so she can >get a sense of other known styles of this period and compare them with what >she learns about "blackwork." I think she does not have much of a sense of >just how much is known about specific embroidery >styles, and how many types of >embroidery there were in this period. My website: Historical Needlework Resources - above period broken down by location, date and techniques. Some of the links to extant pieces may be broken as the museums etc keep changing their databases, but it will get her to the correct institution where she can search. The quickest way to find extant examples is by looking in the "Period" section, which is then broken down by location and technique. >No need for anything beyond Europe or outside the 1300-1600 range. In relation to blackwork, I think that would be a mistake - look at the Mamluk embroidery such as the one on my site: http://medieval.webcon.net.au/loc_middle_east_mamluk.html and compare to the 16th C modelbuch patterns used a source by embroiderers in the 16th Century - almost identical. >Thanks for all your help! > >--Robin If she has specific questions I can probably chase down specific sources. I'm at work and don't have my books on hand. Cheers, Jane _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
