"The Monk" - an embroidered piece inspired by 13th century illumination

My embroidered piece "The Monk" has gone to its new home...

Pic.1: "The Monk" - the entire piece, photo by Mike Prendergast

The work is done on dupioni silk fabric, in metallic (mostly silver), silk and cotton threads with glass beads attached. It measures 28cm x 28cm.

I used only medieval stitches to work out the piece: couching, split, stem and satin.

Pic.2: A detail, photo by Mike Prendergast.

Pic.3: A detail, photo by Mike Prendergast.

Pic.4: A detail, photo by Mike Prendergast.

The inspiration for the piece was an illumination from a copy of ‘Li livres dou santé”(Sloane manuscript 2435, f. 44 v., Brirtish Library) dated to the end of 13th century.

Pic.5:  from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminated_manuscript



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I am frequently asked, how long it takes to create an embroidered miniature. The piece like "The Monk" takes in between 100 - 150 hours of embroidery only. So... as you can imagine I am quite attached to them and I find it a bit difficult to separate with them...