BRICCO EMBROIDERY

The idea for this embroidery was established at the end of the 19^th century by Countess Tarsilla Petitti of Roreto (1868 – 1937) who was inspired by a priestly robe circa 1700 in the custody of the church of  Bricco of Cherasco (CN).

The robe, made of very fine batiste and embroidered with linen and silver threads, depicted coats of arms, peacocks, cockerels, spirals and all different types of flowers.  To make the work easier for the girls at the school-workshop she founded, Tarsilla transferred the designs and the stitches of the robe onto a hand woven cloth of a more robust consistency and substituted the delicate threads with white cotton thread or coloured threads (predominately blues and reds) in order to obtain an end result more rustic but also very pleasant.  The death of  Countess Tarsilla and the beginning of the Second World War caused the workshop to close and, as a consequence, the end of Bricco embroidery.

The subjects of the central theme are filled with long blanket stitches worked very closely together resembling the positioning of the bones of a fish.  The spirals are embroidered with blanket stitches spaced apart with the edges turning to face the outside.  Further details are embroidered with stem stitch, french knot, english stitch and box stitch.

email: ilricamo@libero.it

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