Anghiari Embroidery

Anghiari is a town in Tuscany located northeast of Arezzo. The town is perhaps most well-known for the Battle of Anghiari fought in 1440 and painted by Leonardo DaVinci in a fresco at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence between 1504 and 1505. The fresco was lost but a drawing by Peter Paul Rubens around 1603 is said to be a copy of the center scene, perhaps you recognize it:

The Battle of the Standard by Peter Paul Rubens, image taken from Wikipedia.

In the early twentieth century Anghiari was, like many Italian towns, participating in an arts and crafts movement with laboratories of needlework springing up all over Italy to provide women with a means to earn money and support their families. Ladies of the aristocracy promoted and supported these schools and workshops and much of the handiworks produced were exported to other countries for sale.

A lady from the UK by the name of Beatrice Lyle Smith living near Anghiari was instrumental in the production of Anghiari Embroideries beginning around 1901.

A photo from the Italian Almanac for 1904 shows a picture of the rustic style of Anghiari Embroideries:

From the collection of Bianca Rosa Bellomo, Italy. Almanacco Italiano 1904, R. Bemporad e Fo. Editori, Firenze, pg. 336.

The world had already seen Anghiari Embroideries displayed at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Arts in Turin in 1902 resulting in a flood of orders and praise. I saw the catalogue of this exposition sitting on the shelf in one of the displays in the Liberty House Museum in Chiaramonte Gulfi and begged the curators to let me look at it but alas, they refused.

In 1904 at the World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri "Ethle-Beatrice Smith, Arezzo", took a gold medal for hand embroidery. I have been unsuccessful in finding out more about this prize-winning piece, the people at the 1904 World's Fair Museum tell me it is unlikely that a photo would have been taken of it, even though it won a gold medal.

Anghiari Embroideries are mentioned in reviews of the works at the 1906 World's Fair in Milan and other international exhibitions in Europe during the early part of the 20th century.

In 1907 in Venice at the Seventh International Exposition of the Arts, Anghiari Embroidery was featured as part of a doorway exhibit with "Bice Smith" mentioned:

From the collection of Claudio Romeo, Italy.

Close up detail of the photo above. From the collection of Claudio Romeo, Italy.

From the collection of Bianca Rosa Bellomo, Italy.

No trace of existing pieces of Anghiari Embroidery in Italy have been found, as the works were mostly made for export to the United States, I had hoped to find some examples on this side of the Atlantic, but I have been unsuccessful so far.

More precise information on the execution of Anghiari Embroidery and the information which has been found can be read at TuttoRicamo, click on the British flag for the English version, then "Techniques", then "Anghiari Embroideries".

If you know anything or have seen anything of Anghiari Embroideries in the US or elsewhere, would you leave a comment below?

Heartfelt thanks go to Claudio Romeo and Bianca Rosa Bellomo for permission to use their photos!

Woven Souvenirs from the Milan World's Fair 1906

Today we stretch the relevancy of this post to Italian Needlework. Really I can say there is no needlework involved but we can squeeze under the umbrella of Italian textiles. It's my blog so I guess I can justify anything! The souvenir above features the portraits of the King and Queen of Italy. Click on the photos of a closer look.

I have been very kindly given photos and the permission to post them of souvenir cards from the 1906 Milan World's Fair which are woven silk pictures.




Here is what the back of the souvenir above looks like:


These souvenirs were woven on Jacquard looms, at the time a relatively recent invention which permitted intricately woven patterns. We took a look at some hand-operated Jacquard looms in Perugia in this post, however the looms which wove these souvenirs were almost certainly mechanized. I imagine that as the 1906 Milan World's Fair saw some 7,500,000 visitors the required number of souvenirs would have taxed even the most proficient hand-weavers!

These silk woven souvenirs are all made by L. Paroli & C. di Milano. I have been unsuccessful in finding out anything on this company.

I am told that even though there may have been a huge quantity of these souvenirs made, they are quite rare to find today, a mere century later. Silk woven souvenirs in good shape are even more difficult to find.

Enormous thanks to Ampelio of the NING group MI1906 for the photos and historical information!

Aemilia Ars Dress

A kind gentleman named Claudio over at the MI1906 Milan 1906 World's Fair website has brought to my attention a magazine article he found while looking for something else in a copy of L'Illustrazione Popolare Sunday Edition no. 46 for the 14th of October, 1906 (click on the photo for a closer look):


I give you the entire article in Italian for those Italian readers and I will translate it here below for those English-speaking readers.

Unfortunately it corresponds with a photo in Merletti e Ricami della Aemilia Ars (1929). What must have been a completely amazing dress, tragically lost to fire when the Fine Arts Pavillion was consumed by flames on the night of the 2nd-3rd of August, 1906. (Click on the photo for a closer look):


The caption in Merletti e Ricami della Aemilia Ars reads:

"Dress designed from a sketch by A. Rubbiani by A. Casanova and executed by commission for Signora Marsaglia Balduino (Genoa) in 1905, according to the fashion of the time. There were 15 different kinds of birds among flowers, fruits and ornaments. The hemline was made of individually attached peacock feathers so as to be light and rich at the same time."

The article from L'Illustrazione Popolare reads:

Needlework Miracles burned at the Exposition in Milan

Because at least the memory remains of an object worthy of note lost in the fire – August 3rd – in the Italian Decorative Arts Pavilion, we believe it opportune to present to our readers the gown executed in punto in aria without seams and made on commission, as an almost actual-size detail of the patient work. It was made in two months by sixty-five workers at the Aemilia Ars workshop from a design by A. Casanova. In its sweet whiteness and in its fair and refined richness the beautiful gown made one think of a gift from a fairy who had wanted to wrap up and protect a princess in a cloud of leaves, flowers, birds because she was the most elegant of women. And this dreamy gown, an envied masterpiece was itself destroyed along with many other beautiful things that fateful night.

The flames also burned the laces of the company Jesurum of Venice. So many other wonderful things lost! They were the results of more than a year of study done by Jesurum of the most remarkable reproductions of ancient works and for that purpose many repeated trips were made to visit a few precious originals kept in the Decorative [Arts] Museums of Paris, Antwerp and Brussels. They had also specially bought ancient fragments and made many very expensive attempts to achieve results which are now lost. Among the most important works displayed were a cushion, table centres and doilies, reproduced for the first time from the Byzantine medallions of the church of Torcello, which were bought by the best lace dealer in Paris, Lescure: a Gothic placemat all embroidery and needle lace, a trim rich in a plastron collar [sorry, I don't know what this is!] fan of needlepoint lace, so fine that it was necessary to put a strong lens in front of them so that the public might see the design and workmanship; a complete trim of Rosaline Point, the finest that has been made in recent times; an embroidered blanket, made with all the needle lace stitches manufactured by Jesurum in Burano; a complete rich collection of Burano laces of every stitch; window curtains and covers in every stitch, individually designed and studied; an outfit in coloured lace, bobbin lace, etc.

There were also many items for the table, including a magnificent placemat, composed of sixty-four squares with sixty-four different designs, handkerchiefs, ties, fans. A few reproductions of antique Pellestrina lace were placed together with original pieces from the same Pellestrina museum to show the accuracy of the copy. Jesurum had insured its exhibit for thirty thousand lire, but the damages are, in a complexity of respects, incalculable.

Captions for the L'Illustrazione Popolare photos are as follows:
Photo of dress: Gown executed in punto in aria, without seams, destroyed in the fire at the Decorative Arts Pavilion on the 3rd of August at the Exposition in Milan.

Photo of dress detail: Detail of the gown in punto in aria, exhibited in the Decorative Arts Pavilion, destroyed by the fire of the 3rd of August.

If anyone can tell me about the plastron collar fan - I'd appreciate it!

Many thanks to Claudio for this article!

Milan 1906 World's Fair - Embroiderers

World's Fairs were once an important way to show the world embroideries, laces and other textile arts. Many times prizes won at various fairs are cited in history books as a testament to excellence.

In the 1929 publication on Aemilia Ars needle lace, Merletti e Ricami della Aemilia Ars, there is an entire page dedicated to a list of the prizes won by this outstanding technique. Exhibitions in Italian cities like Milan, Rome, Turin, Genoa and others; France, Belgium, the U.S., Denmark... the list goes on.


At the 1906 World's Fair in Milan there were actually embroiderers stationed in the Galleria del Lavoro [Work Gallery] hand-stitching souvenirs for fair-goers to purchase.

Here is a worker's pass for an embroideress named Giuseppina Alemanni who worked at the Fair:


In the Pavilion which housed the Work Gallery there were all kinds of things for which production could be witnessed besides the embroidering of handkerchiefs, like the printing of magazines, the minting of souvenir tokens – to name only a couple.


On the embroidered handkerchiefs, besides the Fair's logo or flowers, one could also have one's name hand-embroidered thereby personalizing one's souvenir.


The 1906 World's Fair in Milan saw more than 5 million visitors. How many embroidered souvenirs were made, I cannot guess.

Thanks to Ampelio at the NING group MI1906 for the photos and data, without whom this post would not have been possible!

World's Fair – Milan, 1906

"Our exposition, inaugurated the 3rd of May, 1906 by Their Majesties the King and Queen of Italy, was utterly destroyed by the overnight fire of August 2nd and 3rd. The pages of this book, collected while our halls offered themselves to the public like inspired revelations of Italian art and work, today take on a particular documentary merit and are left as a reminder of the artistic work done, the thought and the love of those who promoted and prepared it."
-- Le Industrie Femminili Italiane, 1906


... although rescue was quick, and despite the dedicated efforts of firefighters, both the Italian and Hungarian exhibitions of the Decorative Arts were engulfed in flames. When day came, all that remained of the site was a pile of smoldering rubble and charred beams...
-- L'Illustration, 1906

In what was probably the single worst loss of needlework excellence in history, the Decorative Arts Pavilion burnt to the ground halfway through the World's Fair in Milan in 1906.



An unpardonable act of arson. The list of pieces submitted to the Fair for display and for sale is a dozen pages long: furnishings – entire bedroom suites, dining room linens, door hangings and curtains, window treatments and coverings; clothing – traditional costumes, baby, children, women's and men's outfits, lingerie, personal, table and household linens; dolls wearing representative territorial costumes.


Needle lace, bobbin lace, knitting, crochet, traditional embroidery, territorial specialty embroideries and laces, tapestries, weaving – works of all materials: silk, linen, gold, straw, cotton.

Gone.

Can you imagine the horrific news reaching the women who laboured to make their very best pieces? The loss... the loss!

Much more than embroidery and lace was burned to ashes: priceless manuscripts, documents, metal statues "reduced to ingots".


Then: within 40 days – the Pavillion was reborn. They literally worked around the clock: the architects, the builders, the artists and artisans, the embroiderers, the weavers and the lacemakers to produce exhibitions every bit as wondrous as those that had been lost. Grand prize and gold medal winners.

"... Also worthy of particular praise, is the National Cooperative of Women's Industries... which managed, with really wonderful results, to awaken and discipline in the remotest provinces of Italy... traditional female industries - embroidery, lace or woven fabrics - characteristic of each region. Of these works there were some wonderful ones from Sardinia or from Friuli, the Abruzzi or Bergamo, from Valsesia or Calabria, [which were] burned in the first exhibition, and although much less numerous, there are beautiful ones in the renewed exhibition. ... Among all the other works, of special, very distinguished importance appeared and appear, however, the exquisitely delicate lace of Aemilia Ars..."
-- Vittorio Pica, L'Emporium, 1906.

Many, many thanks to the people of the Ning Group MI 1906 who have made this post possible.

I will continue my research for traces of these pieces and will post here when I find them!