Saint-Aubin, Charles Germain de
L'Art du Brodeur
1770, Paris, Saillant & Nyon et Desaint
First Edition
A famous volume from the apogee of French decorative arts, in which Saint-Aubin codifies embroidery as a disciplined art and cultivated expression of an elevated lifestyle. In fact, the treatise forms part of a broader eighteenth-century effort, overseen by the Académie des Sciences, to codify the métiers of luxury. L’Art du Brodeur unites historical reflection with technical precision, tracing the practice from antiquity to its most refined manifestations in the courts of Europe. Saint-Aubin advances embroidery as an art where balance, proportion, and harmony derive from the primacy of drawing. His reflections on materials and global traditions, from Chinese silk to the inventive transformation of natural substances, situate the craft within a broader testimony on human industry and ornament. The authority of the treatise is attested by its enduring reception: Emile Zola in Le Rêve draws extensively on Saint-Aubin’s work: its workshop scenes, vocabulary, and even compositional details closely modelled on the engravings and terminology of L’Art du Brodeur (source: the Voltaire Foundation).
A comprehensive manual of techniques, encompassing relief embroidery both high and low, gold and silver thread applied over shaped supports, shaded gold, satin stitches in their traditional and modified forms, chain stitch, tambour, couching, knots, sequins, appliqué, and white work. These instructions occupy the first 31 pages and are followed by a vocabulary explaining the principal terms necessary to understand the art of embroidery (pp. 32–41), an explanation of the illustrative tables (pp. 42–50), and finally ten etchings, each composed of multiple detailed elements. The plates, executed by Augustin de Saint-Aubin, render tools, patterns, and procedures with notable clarity. The author, active within a family of embroiderers who rose from provincial origins to Parisian distinction, inherited a craft already dignified by royal patronage. His father held the title of Brodeur du Roi, and Charles-Germain himself enjoyed the favour of Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour, adopting the designation Dessinateur du Roi pour la Broderie et la Dentelle.
What is more delicate than embroidery, and more luxurious than the French court of the eighteen century? This manual marries technical precision with artistic beauty, documenting what the king and his court adored, and elevating craftsmen (and craftswomen) to celebrity status, so much so that even Émile Zola drew inspiration from it.
Pp. [1], (4), 50, 10 plates, (2), [1] r.e.
Contemporary half calf, spine with seven raised bands, gilt title on a leather label; marbled boards; slight scuffing to the edges; some fading to the upper portion of the leather on both boards. Marbled endpapers. Bookplate to the upper pastedown of P.J.A. Morange. Gathering G browned. Woodcut headpieces and tailpieces. Fresh plates. A very good copy.
Dimensions (inches): 16 x 11 x 3/4
Charles-Germain de Saint-Aubin (1721-1786), designer to Louis XV, came from a dynasty of master embroiderers serving the French court.
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