---
title: "Art embroidery"
description: "Art embroidery is a late-19th-century style of hand embroidery in which a designer plans the pattern as art and the stitching stays simple."
type: Glossary
url: https://teazle.art/glossary/art-embroidery
published: 2026-10-19
updated: 2026-10-19
author: "The Teazle editors"
---

# Art embroidery

*Art embroidery is a late-19th-century style of hand embroidery in which a designer plans the pattern as art and the stitching stays simple.*

Art embroidery is the name for a style of hand embroidery from the late 19th century in which a designer plans the pattern as a work of art and the stitching is kept simple. It belongs to the Arts and Crafts movement.

Lynn Hulse, writing for the Ashmolean Museum, describes the art embroiderers as a generation who sought to lift embroidery from a domestic craft to a serious art form. She notes that they relied on the simplest and most common stitches, including long and short, satin, stem, split, darning, [couching](https://teazle.art/glossary/couching.md), laid work and French knot, and that they favored what one commentator called "old-fashioned flowers," drawn with few lines or few shades.

The V&A describes May Morris's designs in the style as using stylized natural forms, flowing lines and medieval influences, with directional stitches that add texture and a sense of movement. In her 1893 handbook *Decorative Needlework* May Morris argued that design comes first, that nature should be recalled rather than copied, and that medieval work is the best thing to study.

The term is not a technique with one fixed stitch list. It describes a way of working: design before stitching, plain stitches used well, and old work as the model. The Morris & Co. embroidery department, which May Morris ran from 1885 to 1896, is one commercial example.


## Sources

1. [The Many Talents of May Morris (Lynn Hulse)](https://www.ashmolean.org/node/4519711). Ashmolean Museum
2. [Unsung Artists: May Morris (1862-1938), V&A Blog](https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/factory-presents/unsung-artists-may-morris-1862-1938). Victoria and Albert Museum
3. [May Morris, Decorative Needlework (London: Joseph Hughes, 1893)](https://archive.org/details/decorativeneedle00morriala). Internet Archive

Canonical: https://teazle.art/glossary/art-embroidery