Mary Ann Beinecke Decorative Art Collection

Of exceptional note is a rare collection of 16th-, 17th-, and 18th-century weavers' pattern books, including several early editions of Nathanael Lumscher's Weber Kunst- und Bild-Buch.

Beautifully illustrated interior decoration books offer glimpses into the trends of the late nineteenth century and many volumes provide rich reference material on the history of subjects encompassing ink, wallpaper, handmade lace, carpet and rug making, and textile production.

Crochet, knitting and needlework pattern books provide instruction and inspiration for hand work projects, while informing on the aesthetics of their time.

Support from the Nantucket Historic Trust provided pay and housing for professionals in the textile arts from all over the world to teach needlery at the resident classes.

Workshops were offered year round in subjects such as tapestry, weaving, vegetal dye, spinning, bobbin lace, and silk screen printing.

The collection was acquired through working with rare book dealers who specialized in her textile and decorative art interests, and was housed and curated in a library at the School.

To access rare volumes researchers are encouraged to telephone, e-mail, or write in advance of their visit; contact information is located on the home page.

Begun in London in 1872, this conjuration of forgotten needlecraft was chiefly due to the exertions of a lady moved to pity by the sad fate of a young governess who was found drowned in the Thames, desperate after a long struggle for livelihood in the only career open to her.

The idea of creating a school for needlework of the higher ornamental class, thus prompted, has directed into a new channel the efforts of many women disqualified, by delicate health or for other reasons, for self-support by occupations requiring long continued exertion, mental or physical.

The Royal School of Art Needlework, first established in a small room over a shop in a side-street, is today a great and beneficent institution, occupying permanent quarters at South Kensington.

As he was from an aristocratic family, he had contact with Dutch residents of the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) including the artist F.J. Du Chattel (1856–1917), who taught him to paint with watercolours in 1889.

There is certainly much emphasis on upholstery in his book, a concession to the growing interest in this branch of interior decoration which was largely due to the increasing output of materials from the factories.