Continuatio der Kunst- und Fleiß-übenden Nadel-Ergötzung oder des neu-ersonnenen Besondern Nehe-Bichs dritter Theil'

This is a printed design for embroidery for a man's nightcap featuring floral and acanthus leaf motif around a pomegranate to be embroidered in corded quilting. It is from a pattern book for embroidery (about 1725) by Margaretha Helm (neé Mainberger) (born in 1659 in Deiningen, died in 1742 in Nuremberg, Germany). Helm worked in Nuremberg as an embroiderer, a teacher of embroidery and a copperplate engraver who had her designs published by Johann Christoph Weigel.

Corded quilting was recorded as a new technique in embroidery in Germany in 1715, in G.S. Corvinus, <u> Useful Galant and Curious Women's Dictionary' </u>. It was fashionable in Europe and Britain and dress of this type of embroidery survives in numerous collections. This technique was originally French and known as 'Marseillen Genähde' (Marseilles Stitching) in eigtheenth-century German. Margaretha Kraus, another designer for embroidery, stated in her foreward to her pattern book <u> Clear Presentation of Various Designs for Commendable Women's Work</u> that 'Marseilles stitching has found the luck that it has been taken up increasingly and become a popular fashion whereby there is a great demand for useful patterns'. Corded stitching is a technique in which two parallel lines of stitching are made through two layers of cloth, then heavy yarn or soft cord is inserted between the layers. This makes a raised linear pattern.

The V&A has a series of pattern books for embroidery in three parts by Margaretha Helm of which this volume is Part III. It is entitled Continuatio der Kunst- und Fleiss-übenden Nadel-Ergötzung oder des neu-ersonnenen besondern Nehe-Buchs Dritter Theil or Continuation of the Delights of the Art and Industry of the practising Needle or the newly-invented special Sewing Book Third part.