Therese Mirani (2 December 1824 – 24 May 1901) was an embroiderer and teacher, who was director of the Imperial and Royal School for Art Embroidery of the Ministry of Commerce in Vienna. She invented a new type of lacework, points imperial, and a new technique of embroidery, broderie dentelle, which was collected by Empress Elisabeth of Austria. She was awarded an Imperial and Royal Warrant of Appointment.
Biography
Mirani was born on 2 December 1824 in Prague, Bohemia.[1] Her father was the writer Johann Heinrich Mirani (1802–73).[2] Interested in both the technique, theory and history of embroidery from a young age, Mirani related in later life that she always wanted to be self-employed and described herself as a "voluntary spinster".[3]
In 1863, she began to supply the royal court and, in 1865, she was awarded with an Imperial and Royal Warrant of Appointment.[2] She invented a new embroidery technique called broderie dentelle and a new type of lace known as points imperial.[2] Empress Elisabeth was a collector of Mirani's broderie dentelle works, and commissioned an altar-cloth using the technique for the church of St Stephen.[3] She was also a fashion advisor to the New Free Press,[2] and wrote on home decoration for Wiener Mode.[4]
In 1867, a sample of Mirani's white embroidery work was exhibited at the Österreichisches Museum für Kunst und Industrie.[4][5] In the same year, she was awarded a medal at the World Exhibition in Paris and was the first woman on the Austrian jury.[2]
In 1874, she helped to found the Imperial and Royal School for Art Embroidery of the Ministry of Commerce in Vienna, and was one of its first teachers.[6] After the death of the director Emilie Bach (1840–1890), she became director.[3] The school was designed to enable women to produce high-quality Hausindustrie goods, and to provide opportunities for working class women.[7]
Upon her retirement in 1899, she was awarded the Civil Service Cross (de).[8] She died on 24 May 1901 in Vienna.[1]
Historiography
Historian Rebecca Houze has described how Mirani "helped shape the direction of design reform in Vienna".[6] Design historian Jeremy Aynsley described both Mirani and Emilie Bach as "overlooked figures" in the history of Arts and Crafts schools and the development of the subject in Austria.[9]
References
- Therese Mirani fraueninbewegung.onb.ac.at, retrieved 2022-01-02^
- H. Meißner: Mirani, Therese. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 6, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1975, ISBN 3-7001-0128-7,, p. 314.^
- Herzog-Hauser Gertrud. Therese Mirani. Essays, 1925-04-17^
- R. Houze. At the Forefront of a Newly Emerging Profession? Ethnography, Education and the Exhibition of Women's Needlework in Austria-Hungary in the Late Nineteenth Century Journal of Design History, 2008-01-01^
- Geschichte - MAK Museum Wien www.mak.at, retrieved 2022-01-02^
- Rebecca Houze. "Textiles, Fashion, and Design Reform in Austria-Hungary Before the First World War ": Principles of Dress Routledge, 2017-07-05^
- Veszprémi, Nóra. "Textiles, Fashion, and Design Reform in Austria-Hungary before the First World War: Principles of Dress." Journal of Art Historiography 13 (2015): 1.^
- Megan Marie Brandow-Faller. An art of their own: Reinventing 'Frauenkunst' in the female academies and artist leagues of late-Imperial and First Republic Austria, 1900–1930 2010^
- Jeremy Aynsley. Rebecca Houze. Textiles, Fashion, and Design Reform in Austria-Hungary before the First World War. Farnham: Ashgate, 2015. Pp. 383, illus. Austrian History Yearbook, 2016^