Thérèse de Dillmont
Thérèse de Dillmont (10 October 1846 – 22 May 1890) was an Austrian needleworker and writer. Dillmont's Encyclopedia of Needlework (1886) has been translated into 17 languages. She owned a string of shops in European capitals and she was "one of the most important pioneers in the international and multicultural enterprise of hobby needlework in the late nineteenth century". Life Thérèse Maria Josepha de Dillmont was born in 1846 in Wiener Neustadt, the youngest of five children. Her mother was Franziska Schwendtenwein and her father, Ferdinand, was a Professor of architecture at the Military Academy. Dillmont attended an embroidery school founded by the Empress Marie-Theresa. After her father died in 1857, Dillmont was brought up and educated in Vienna. In 1884 Dillmont left the embroidery school that she had started with her sister Franziska and moved to France where she wrote her encyclopedia. Dillmont's book on needlework was published after Sophia Frances Anne Caulfeild and Blanche Catherine Saward Dictionary of Needlework. Creators of these vast works were assisted by the copyright law which allowed authors to freely borrow material from periodicals. The book pulled together thousands of textile designs from many different countries including Egypt, Bulgaria, Turkey and China. Dillmont