Sat Jan 12, 2019 08:30 PM

Morning Modelbuch (1/13/2019)

I went to an event today and was talking modelbucher. Someone asked me what my favorite painting with a pattern found in a pattern book was. I’ve been thinking about it and it is probably Hans Holbein’s Darmstadt Madonna, finished in 1528. Not because it is my favorite dress or favorite pattern, but because it is the first painting where I really registered that things matched up. I first saw it in an early art history class, before I knew much more than the basics of blackwork and my knowledge of modelbucher was limited to owning the Dover paperback.of Vinciolo and having a vague idea of who Peter Quentel was.

Patterns from Quentel (this is the 1544 version.) https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/354658

The painting went into private hands in 2011, but there are photos up at Wikipedia. This article has nothing to do with embroidery, but the story of the painting’s provenance and an early forgery is interesting. https://www.artsjournal.com/realcleararts/2011/07/hesse_holbein.html

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