Thérèse de Dillmont (1846–1890)

Thérèse de Dillmont was born in Wiener Neustadt, south of Vienna, the youngest of five children. Her father Ferdinand de Dillmont was a military officer and professor of architecture at the Military Academy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. She was educated to be a governess and teacher, and attended an embroidery school in Vienna founded by the Empress Marie-Theresa. In 1884, she moved to France, where she wrote her Complete Encyclopedia of Needlework. It contained thousands of textile designs from many different countries including Egypt, Bulgaria, Turkey and China. She also founded her own textile school at Dornach near the French city of Mulhouse, and travelled often to oversee shops she opened in Vienna, London, Paris, and Berlin. The Alsatian-French company DMC, with which she had worked, continued to publish books with needlework designs under her name after her death.