I was recently asked by the head of our needleworker's guild to teach a class at this upcoming Collegium Occidentalis. I've been knocking around the idea of a Holbein embroidery class and thought this would be the perfect impetus for me. Sure enough, it was. I have two coffee-table books on Holbein and his works and in "embroidery spotting" my way through them, I came across a photo of an older man facing the viewer with a dark outfit on that had . . well, stuff on it. Luckily, one of the books had a kick-ass closeup, which allowed me to see that this stuff was black on black embroidery.

SWEET. This has got to be one of the cooler things I've ever run across. This is Charles de Solier, a French nobleman who visited England in the early 1530's. This portrait was probably done around 1534.

The stitching is subtle, and Holbein has rendered it lovingly and in great detail. I'm fairly certain that the stitches used are close herringbone or another braid-like stitch for the outside rows, and stem stitch for the arabesques. It even looks slightly quilted, but that could just be a byproduct of the embroidery itself.

This style of sleeves with the lengths of fabric joined at intervals with other fabric puffed through appears in other French, etc. portraits of the time. My particular favorite is Joos van Cleve's 1530 portrait of Eleanora, Queen of France. Her sleeve bands are neat because they remind me of computer ribbon cable. But, as a friendly seamstress suggested, they're probably just couched silver thread. Drat. We also have Jean Clouet's 1525ish portrait of Francois I, King of France. Here too are bands of embroidered arabesques, possibly couched gold threads this time.

I happened to mention this particular portrait to Baccus, who connected it to the one that Marsaili had discusses making for him. I pinged her and sure enough it was the same one, and I offered to add the embroidery whenever she had the time to cut out the pieces and mark the embroidered spaces. Awesome! It won't be any time soon, but I like the thought of doing it in black stem stitch. I'd like to practice the close herrigbone stitch first, though, to make sure the it gives the same effect I'm seeing in the portrait.

But that's way in the future. Since the class and this real-life embroidery project happen to coincide in my world, I decided to rip the patten from the portrait and offer it in my class. It's weird; I managed to knock this out in an hour or so. I looked at the finished pattern and thought, "this can't have been that easy." But oh well - it's done. And here it is for your viewing pleasure.

The images of Charles de Solier were borrowed from the Web Gallery of Art. Please visit their page for this portrait here.

The trim is a picture of my own sketch. Mine, all mine! But you can use it too, that's cool.