Pictorial Embroidery in England: A Critical History of Needlepainting and Berlin Work

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Dr Rosika Desnoyers (Independent Scholar and Artist, UK)

Pictorial Embroidery in England

A Critical History of Needlepainting and Berlin Work

Dr Rosika Desnoyers (Independent Scholar and Artist, UK)

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English

Bloomsbury Visual Arts
25 February 2021

Textile design & theory; Manufacturing industries; Needlework & fabric crafts

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.

By: Dr Rosika Desnoyers (Independent Scholar and Artist UK)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 11mm
Weight: 290g
ISBN: 9781350229396
ISBN 10: 1350229393
Pages: 184
Publication Date: 25 February 2021
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

List of Illustrations Introduction The Invention of Needlepoint Berlin Work and the Question of Domestic Craft Outline of the Book 1. Needlepainting in Great Britain Women Artists and Art Institutions in Eighteenth-Century England Mary Linwood and the Needlepainters Professionals and Amateurs 2. Imitation and Innovation in the Late Eighteenth Century Between Art and Industry Science and the Tasteful Person Copying and Luxury Goods 3. Towards an Industrial Aesthetic Proximity of Artistic and Scientific Invention Guidebooks and the Making of the Modern Amateur The Jacquard Loom and Its Curious Commemoration 4. The Writing of Pictorial Berlin Work Contemporary Embroidery Histories Nineteenth-Century Accounts: Berlin Work as Official Knowledge Twentieth-Century Accounts: Berlin Work as Submerged Knowledge Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

Rosika Desnoyers is an artist and holder of a PhD in Interdisciplinary Humanities from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.

Reviews for Pictorial Embroidery in England: A Critical History of Needlepainting and Berlin Work

Brilliantly situating embroidery in the paradoxical age of industry, Desnoyers encourages us to rethink assumptions about elite and amateur practices ... A necessary read for anyone concerned with questions of gender, capitalism and aesthetics in the emergence of modern disciplines. --T'ai Smith, University of British Columbia, Canada This cogently-argued reassessment of 19th-century pictorial embroidery, fine art and commerce reveals how the art of needlepainting and the subsequent practice of Berlin work involved issues of image production, industrial manufacture, education, cultural value and social mobility. Desnoyers enables us to view this history of embroidery with new understanding. --Victoria Mitchell, Norwich University of the Arts, UK