Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood is probably the world’s leading authority on the history of embroidery. She edited the multi-volume Encyclopedia of Embroidery, which is the definitive reference work on the subject. Her new book The Atlas of World Embroidery: A Global Exploration of Heritage and Styles features “a selection of the main forms of embroidery from around the world,” and it’s an international survey of embroidery traditions rather than a comprehensive history.
The Atlas of World Embroidery is beautifully illustrated with historical and contemporary examples. It also has a classified bibliography. In her introduction, Vogelsang-Eastwood writes: “as well as providing a global story of embroidery, I hope this book helps to illustrate the long and diverse history of this craft.” The book certainly achieves this, though as she acknowledges, a single volume can’t cover every type of embroidery worldwide.
The only previous books with global coverage of embroidery history were both written by Mary Gostelow around fifty years ago. Gostelow’s A World of Embroidery was a country-by-country history, followed by the similar Embroidery: Traditional Designs, Techniques and Patterns from All Over the World, which had more colour illustrations. (Embroidery was reprinted in the US as The Complete International Book of Embroidery.)
Needlework Through the Ages, by Mary Symonds and Louisa Preece, was the first comprehensive history of needlework (of which embroidery is one type), published almost a century ago. It was followed fifty years later by Needlework: An Illustrated History, edited by Harriet Bridgeman and Elizabeth Drury.
The Atlas of World Embroidery is beautifully illustrated with historical and contemporary examples. It also has a classified bibliography. In her introduction, Vogelsang-Eastwood writes: “as well as providing a global story of embroidery, I hope this book helps to illustrate the long and diverse history of this craft.” The book certainly achieves this, though as she acknowledges, a single volume can’t cover every type of embroidery worldwide.
The only previous books with global coverage of embroidery history were both written by Mary Gostelow around fifty years ago. Gostelow’s A World of Embroidery was a country-by-country history, followed by the similar Embroidery: Traditional Designs, Techniques and Patterns from All Over the World, which had more colour illustrations. (Embroidery was reprinted in the US as The Complete International Book of Embroidery.)
Needlework Through the Ages, by Mary Symonds and Louisa Preece, was the first comprehensive history of needlework (of which embroidery is one type), published almost a century ago. It was followed fifty years later by Needlework: An Illustrated History, edited by Harriet Bridgeman and Elizabeth Drury.