ABSTRACT
This essay argues that what has previously been considered the domestic and insular art of embroidery was among the most cosmopolitan art practices linking together the British Isles with the early modern Mediterranean, and the Safavid, Mughal, and Ottoman Empires. Beginning in the late sixteenth century, pattern books transported Italian embroidery designs throughout Europe. Moreover, while scholars of textiles have long recognized the effectiveness of prints in circulating imagery, visual content also moved by way of cloth itself. A 1623 pattern book, for instance, included embroidery motifs of birds that were adapted from Persian silk brocades, testifying to the vibrant silk trade between the Safavid Empire and Europe. The materials of the embroidery process were also international: steel needles came from Spain and Germany, while silk floss arrived in Europe pre-dyed from the Ottoman Empire. Due to the mobility of textiles and pattern books, and the ease with which woven or printed textiles could be replicated by freehand needlework, embroidery became the great absorptive art of the seventeenth century.
