ABEGG-STIFTUNG

			Apropos Patterns for Embroidery, Lace and Woven Textiles Margaret Abegg The early printed pattern book for embroidery, lace and woven textiles had held interest for certain bibliographers and collectors of woodcut, etched and engraved ornament prints for many years. When the Print Room of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York acquired in 1929 the apparently unique earliest dated book of this category the puzzling question of which had been published first was settled. The text of Part One of "Apropos Patterns For Embroidery, Lace and Woven Textiles" within this binding reviews the sequence of European printed pattern books as recorded by Professor Arthur Lotz, formerly of the Kunstbibliothek in Berlin, whose Bibliographie der Modelbücher published in Leipzig in 1933 will remain the standard work on the subject. His text closes with descriptions of the few books printed in England before 1700. A second edition appeared in Stuttgart and in London in 1963, the latter also in German. By 1520 the Lutheran Controversy had speeded German printing presses, townspeople were prosperous, feudalism was declining, and the enterprises of the Fugger, Welser and several other prominent German families had made Augsburg a clearing-house for trade at home, in Italy and the Levant. Already in the Middle Ages, Augsburg produced all kinds of woven products and its Guild of Weavers dates from the fourteenth century. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the second decade of the sixteenth century Johann Schönsperger the Younger of the Augsburg printing family, owner of a paper mill and printer of textiles as well as books, brought out about 1523 what appears to be the first printed pattern book, a collection of woodcuts upon twenty-four leaves. The earliest dated book, with dissimilar patterns, came from the same press on the 22nd of October 1524. Thus a widened circulation of patterns for weavers and embroiderers matched the increasing elaboration of costume. Gradually the little pattern book gave way to the more complicated compositions of the Baroque and Rococo periods.The host of books, the portfolios of plates, treatises upon gardening and horticulture, emblems and bestiaries as well as actual flowers were ready sources for textile designers. During the Cavalier or "Three Musketeers" period of swash-buckling, of plumes in the seventeenth century, the designing of laces for its extravagant use in attire reached its peak in pattern books. As the following century drew to a close textiles for Costume and household furnishings reflect a diminished scale, a more sober presentation and a closeness to Nature characterized by the English Park and reflected in Literature before the débacle in France which made its mark upon the rest of Europe. The illustrations of both Parts One and Two represent an endeavour to bring together pattern and accompanying textile and lace as well as their counterpart in paintings, especially portraits. With the advent of machines in the nineteenth century the subject of this monograph is concluded.