Petit Point ~ A small point for great embroidery

Empress Maria Theresa was a fanatical embroiderer, and the ladies at her court used embroidery to compete for her favours. Anyone who wanted remain anyone at the Vienna court was obliged to admire the Empress’s skills.

The entire Empire worked with petit point, and from 1720 to 1775 petit point was the exclusive form of embroidery of the aristocracy. Using hand-painted models, queens and princesses, armed with a magnifying glass, set out to apply the 19 x 19 stitches per square centimetre to the fabric.

They worked from right to left, inserting the embroidery thread from behind across two threads of the canvas, pushing the embroidered motif on the front upwards to give it a three-dimensional effect.

Petit point was a cult during the Viennese rococo, with Marie Antoinette introducing it to the French fashion world in Versailles. The skill was rapidly democratised thanks to the first publication of petit point models in 1804. The ladies of the upper middle classes, always keen to follow the fashions of the court, devoted their hours of leisure to this gentrified activity.

During the Biedermeier period, the rose became the favourite motif of an embroidering social class that used petit point to decorate personal accessories with individual touches: tone-in-tone pastel shades were the embodiment of the ideal of domestic harmony. The embroidery acquired depth through the shades of the yarn colours.

Petit point is part of the Viennese cultural heritage, and bears the cachet of both imperial society and the upper middle classes. It is also an internationally famous and appreciated sign of a quality souvenir from Vienna.

The use of petit point on a stamp, however, is something new, resulting in a work of art for the philatelists’ collections courtesy of the Vorarlberg embroidery company Hämmerle & Vogel.

Following the successful “Edelweiss” premier and its successor, the “Gentian”, the series of stamp-sized embroidered works of art continues with the “Rose”. To reflect the love of philately, the rose on this masterpiece of stamp art is red.