The little-known art of Berlin Work was once the most commonly practiced art form among European women. Pictorial Embroidery in England is the first academic study of both pictorial Berlin Work and its precursor, needlepainting, exploring their cultural status in the 18th and 19th centuries. From enlightenment practices of copying to the development of an industrial aesthetic and the making of the modern amateur, Berlin Work developed as an official knowledge associated with notions of cultural and scientific progress. However, with the advent of the Arts and Crafts movement and modernist aesthetics, Berlin Work was gradually demoted to a craft hobby. Delving into the social, cultural and economic context of English pictorial embroidery, Pictorial Embroidery in England recovers Berlin Work as an art form, and demonstrates how this overlooked practice was once at the centre of cultural life.

Brimming with intricate drawings, color photos, and excerpts from 18th-century writings, this enthralling book is your passport to a bygone age. Fashion and textiles lecturer Gail Marsh offers insights into the lives of 18th-century embroiderers; their equipment, stitches, and threads; and techniques such as working with metal thread and spangles, silk embroidery, tambour, and the forgotten arts of Hollie Point and knotting. A must-have for historical costume creators, collectors, and needlework enthusiasts.

A glorious companion volume to Historical Fashion in Detail- The 17th and 18th Centuries and Modern Fashion in Detail, this book captures the opulence and variety of nineteenth-century fashion through an authoritative text, exquisite colour photography and line drawings of the complete garments. From the delicate embroidery on neoclassical gowns to the vibrant colours of crinolines and the elegant tailoring of men's coats, the richness of the period is revealed in breathtaking detail. The garments showcased here, drawn from the V&A Museum's world famous collection, were at the height of fashion in their time. They display a remarkable range of colours, materials and construction details- from the intricate boning on women's corsets to the patterned silk of men's waistcoats. Seen in close-up for the first time and further illuminated by detailed commentary and line drawings that show the ingenuity of the underlying construction, these carefully chosen garments illustrate some of the major themes of nineteenth-century dress.

First published in 1999. and Middlemarch and of a range of nineteenth-century historical works, including works by and about women that are discussed extensively here for the first time. The blurring of boundaries between historical and fictional narratives, stimulated by the enormous success of Walter Scott's novels, and the development of social history are shown to have been key factors in an uneven, controversial, but persistent feminization of history, the first because of the longstanding association of novels with women the second because social history focuses on the private sphere, traditionally women's domain. Along with the appearance of numerous historical texts written by women and taking women as their subjects, these developments challenged conventional beliefs about historical authority and relevance that had long relegated women to the margins, both literally and metaphorically. In its exploration of these changes and their implications, Gender and Victorian Historical Writing revises standard assumptions about Victorian ideas of history, finding an awareness of and experimentation with gender and genre that prefigure theoretical and scholarly concerns in contemporary women's history.

Blackwork, or black-on-white embroidery, has long been a popular craft among needleworkers. Often referred to as "Spanish work" because of its association with Catherine of Aragon and its possible connection with Moorish Spain, blackwork has also been well-documented in portraits by Hans Holbein the Younger and other 16th-century artists. In the present carefully researched work, this beautiful, distinctive, and age-old craft receives a comprehensive treatment from veteran needlecrafter Mary Gostelow. She first offers a fascinating background history of blackwork, tracing its use in England, the United States, and other countries. Clear, concise descriptions of stitches and equipment — needles, ground fabric, embroidery thread, and more — accompany discussions of contemporary styles and suggestions for innovative patterns. Originally applied to clothing and household items, blackwork is still used today to embellish table linens, bedding, wearing apparel, pillows, wall hangings, and other domestic articles. Enhanced with 140 illustrations, including many close-up sketches of blackwork designs, this intriguing and valuable how-to book will appeal to needlecrafters wanting to apply the time-honored techniques of blackwork to new projects in decorative embroidery.