Transcriber's Note
The original text contained an errata list. The corrections have been madeto this text, and the list moved to the end of the book for reference purposesonly.
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NEEDLEWORK AS ART
BY
LADY M. ALFORD
London:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, AND RIVINGTON,
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.
1886.
[All rights reserved.]
——
LONDON:
PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LIMITED,
ST. JOHN’S SQUARE.
TELEMACHUS PENELOPE
DEDICATED BY PERMISSION
TO
THE QUEEN.
TO
THE QUEEN.
Your Majesty’s most gracious acceptance of the Dedication of mybook on “Needlework as Art” casts a light upon the subject thatshows its worthiness, and my inability to do it justice. Still,I hope I may fill a gap in the artistic literature of our day,and I venture to lay my work at your Majesty’s feet withloyal devotion.
MARIAN M. ALFORD.
PREFACE.
In the Preface to the “Handbook of Art Needlework,”which I edited for the Royal School at South Kensingtonin 1880, I undertook to write a second part, to be devotedto design, colour, and the common-sense modes of treatingdecorative art, as applied especially to embroideredhangings, furniture, dress, and the smaller objects ofluxury.
Circumstances have, since then, obliged me to reconsiderthis intention; and I have found it more practicableto cast the information which I have collected fromEastern and Western sources into the form of a separatework, which in no way supersedes or interferes with thetechnical instruction supposed to be conveyed in a handbook.I have found so much amusement in learningfor myself the history of the art of embroidery, and intracing the beginnings and the interchanges of nationalschools, that I cannot but hope that I may excite asimilar interest in some of my readers, and so inducethose who are capable, to help and lift it to a higherplace than it has been allowed in these latter days tooccupy. If I have given too important a position tothe art of needlework, I would observe that while I havebeen writing, decorative embroidery has come to the front,and is at this moment one of the hobbies of the day;and I would point out that it contains in itself all the[Pg viii]necessary elements of