EMBROIDERY

(Fr. broderie.) The name given to the art of working figures on stuffs or muslin with a needle and thread. All embroidery may be divided into two sorts, embroidery on stuffs and on muslin: the former is used chiefly in church vestments, housings, standards, articles of furniture, ., and is executed with silk, cotton, wool, gold and silver threads, and sometimes ornamented with spangles, real or mock pearls, precious or imitation stones, .; the latter is employed mostly in articles of female apparel, as caps, collars, ., and is performed only with cotton. In Germany this division is Indicated by the expre ion wei e {white or muslui), and bunte Stickerei {coloured or cloth) embroidery. The embroidery of stuffs is performed on a kind of loom or frame; that of muslin by stretching it on a pattern already designed. The modes of embroidering stuffs or musKn with the common needle are extremely various; but a minute description of these proce es would be as diflScult as it would be uninteresting to the general reader. They consist for the most part of a combination of ordinary stitches; but no limit can be a igned to their number or variety. The art of embroidery was well known to the ancients. As early as the time of Moses we find it practised succe fully by the Hebrews; and long before the Trojan war the women of Sidon had acquired celebrity for their skill in embroidery. At a later period, this art was introduced into Greece, probably by the Phrygians (by some considered as the inventors); and to such a degree of skill did the Grecian women attain in it, that their performances were said to rival the finest paintings. In our own times the art of embroidery has been cultivated with great succe , more especially in Germany and France; and though for a long period it was practised only by the ladies of these countries as an elegant accomplishment, it is now regarded as a staple of traffic, and furnishes employment for a large portion of the population. In England also it appears to have taken deep root, as it now forms an accomplishment of which almost every lady is in po e ion. About seven years ago a great impetus was given to the cultivation of this art, both on the Continent and in England, by the invention of a machine which enables a female to execute the most complex patterns with 130 needles, all in motion at once, as accurately as she could formerly do with one. But as no account of this remarkable invention which we might give could be intelligible without the aid of illustrations, which would be out of place in this work, we must refer the reader to Dr. lire's Dictionary of Arts, 8(c. for full information respecting it. One such machine with 130 needles is estimated to perform daily the work of 15 hand embroiderers employed in the ordinary way. Many of them are now mounted in Germany, France, and Switzerland; and in Manchester there is one factory where they do beautiful work. (See the Art of Needlework, edited by the Counte of Will on. Lend. 1840.) [s. 406]