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THE
"BANDERA" EMBROIDERY
This embroidery was born in Piedmont at the end of XVII century
when Maria Giovanna Battista Duchess of Savoia Nemours came
from France to get marry with Carlo Emanuele II, Duke of Savoia.
Because
this wedding, noble families covered all the furnitures of their
castles with cotton fabric since their precious silk fabrics
were damaged and, 'cause the expensive subsiding wars, they
didn't have money enought to renew them .
In
order to enrich this plane cotton fabric, aristocratics ladies
embroided it with patterns inspired by the italian baroque architecture.
This
is the reason why even nowadays in every piedmontese castle
it's possible to find Bandera embroderies copied from stucco
ceilings, from engraved fornitures, from papiers-peints.
They
traditionally used woollen thread with a tecnique called needle-paintings.
Flowers mainly represented were peonies, copied from XVIII century
chinese papiers-peints.
This embrodery has been used in Piedmont untill the beginning
of the XX when it completely disappeared.
Consolata
Beraudo di Pralormo in 1993 had to restore an ancient canopy
bed in the Pralormo Castle (near Turin); nobody was able to
do it. She decided to save this ancient tradition and went to
France to get the old woollen threads from factories.
In
the historical archives of the castle, Consolata Pralormo found
ancient patterns and drawings, so she decided to open a school
in order to hand down to posterity this beautiful embrodery.
Pupils
of this school are now 600 ladies learning embrodery to decorate
their home, and the aim of saving this ancient piedmontese tradition
is achieved.
The "Bandera" is an interior decoration embrodery for bedheads,
bedspreads, cushions, stools, armchairs, sofas and curtains.
At
Pralormo Castle, at the first floor of the Orangerie there is
an handcraft workroom where some women of the village make bandera
embrodery for private clients, antiquity shops, interior designers.
It's
also possible to buy "kits" containing all you need to embroid
cushion.
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