Origin: Berlin, Germany.
Stitch Count: 289H x 250W
Linen: Model stitched on 36 count using DMC stranded cotton.

This hand-coloured embroidery pattern of the Berlin company "M. Levy" from the Biedermeier period (1815 – 1848) is something very special: It is a complete sampler and a unique design of an unknown artist!

Berlin was the world's most important centre for coloured embroidery patterns at that time. There were more than 20 publishing companies in the height between 1840 and 1850! Some of them exported their patterns to England and America (very popular there as "Berlin wool work" up to this day).

The production of a needlework pattern was very expensive and time-consuming: from the colour design of an artist to the transfer into a grid with appropriate symbols for the intended colours, up to the colouring – mostly done by skillful homeworkers.

The middle-class women of that era needed a tremendous amount of patterns for the many things in the household that could be embroidered, knitted, or crochetted: for cigar and spectacle cases, for boxes and cans, envelopes, book and sofa covers, tobacco pouches and slippers, for cushions and travel bags, for braces and napkin-rings, handbags, picture frames, bell pulls and baby hats – they needed braids, tendrils, borders and scenes.