At first we could not believe our eyes and believed that this is the original "Camille Monet and Son Jean on the Hill" painted by Monet in 1875, but then the surprise was big, because every single "brushstroke" is a stitch.

Embroidered masterpieces?

Yes, they do exist and the Ercigoj Art Embroidery studio from Slovenia has even specialized in it. With a lot of enthusiasm, the creative minds of this well-established, family-owned company transform paintings by renowned artists or other sophisticated motifs into breathtaking embroidered masterpieces. These creations are as expressive as the originals and simply fascinating. To achieve this, the embroidery studio combines different machine and hand techniques. For the realisation of Monet's motif "Camille Monet and Son Jean on the hill" (of which, by the way, there will be only 99 copies in a limited edition), the team led by the owner Boštjan Vidmar, has invested over 500 hours of mere development time and then realized the digitised motif with 1.9 million stitches and a total of 98 colours in countless more hours. Each stitch is perfectly digitised or aligned so that the embroidered effect comes as close as possible to the painted original.

The 1.9 million "brush strokes" were embroidered with Gunold's high-quality viscose embroidery thread Sulky. The premium embroidery thread, made from pure branded viscose, has a silky-soft sheen and convinces with its particularly even colouring. Sulky is one of the world's most popular embroidery threads and has also convinced the art studio Ercigoj to use this thread for their high-quality embroidery designs. “Ercigoj art is about beautiful colours and lasting art,"says Boštjan Vidmar. „ Sulky from Gunold is ideal for this. Both, the quality of the embroidery thread and the brilliant colours are perfect for us "Another very important plus of SULKY is the high resistance to fading and the color accuracy: a Sulky embroidery thread color shade is and will remain as it is, even after many years! „This is especially important for us, since our customers must be able to rely on the fact that the pictures embroidered by us do not lose any of their colour brilliance over the years ", emphasizes Boštjan Vidmar. His studio in Ljubljana, Slovenia, has been specialising in artistic design and embroidery for many decades. For twenty years now, he and his team of embroidery artists have also been working on the embroidery visualization of well-known masterpieces.

90 Years of Ercigoj Embroidered Art

Atelier Ercigoj has a very long embroidery tradition of over 90 years. Today, the team uses this vast experience to push the boundaries of embroidery, combine innovative machine technologies with craftsmanship, change embroidery techniques and develop new techniques. “The embroidery artworks never cease to amaze. Often people do not believe that it is actually embroidery and not a painting or picture,"Boštjan Vidmar describes his experience with customers. Every artwork is a challenge and the process from the idea to realization is very demanding. Which embroidery techniques, materials and colours are required? These and many other questions have to be answered first. For difficult details, various studies are then carried out to obtain the best possible expressiveness. Only when everything fits, the motif is digitized (punched), whereby fine details are perfected by hand, stitch by stitch.

The Big Moment

The subsequent embroidery process on the machine shows whether everything has been planned and digitized correctly, whether each stitch fits, whether the light shines back as planned, and whether the texture is consistent overall. “This phase requires a lot of manual work, knowledge and patience”, says Boštjan Vidmar. Quality inspections are carried out step by step. If even a small detail is not satisfying, we start again from the beginning. Only when every single stitch is perfect are we satisfied." The result is accordingly overwhelming: smooth transitions and shades, different textures and a colour spectrum that can hardly be believed to be possible with the help of a given colour chart. The team from Gunold is also more than surprised by this unique result. “When the art studio Ercigoj contacted us, we were immediately impressed by the idea. But we all could not have imagined how fantastic the embroidered artwork would really look like”, explains Head of Marketing Stephan Gunold. “We are very impressed with the colour effects achieved by Atelier Ercigoj with just under 100 Sulky colours. That's just amazing!”

And who are the customers for this kind of art? Boštjan Vidmar:"These are people interested in art who are looking for the extraordinary: collectors, artists, interior designers and architects, fashion designers. Our customers also come from the fashion, furniture and automotive industries. By the way, we are currently experimenting with the third dimension and are in the process of creating unique artistic furniture and lamps. We haven't run out of creative embroidery ideas in over 90 years!"