The embroidery workshop at Putna Monastery was the most important one during the reign of Stephen the Great and in the whole history of Romanian mediaeval art. Its value and importance are mainly because Putna is the only monastery that has developed a specific embroidery style. This and the significant number of surviving items make Putna collection unique worldwide.

Four inscriptions prove that Putna had an embroidery workshop during the reigns of Stephen the Great (1457–1504) and Bogdan III (1504–1517). The inscriptions on the Dormition of the Mother of God zavesa (1485) and on the Annunciation dvera (end of the 15th century) mention that Prince Stephen had them made „at Putna Monastery”. Also, the inscription on the Epitaphios from 1490 mentions the same prince: “Io Stephen Voivode… hath this aër made at the Monastery of Putna”. Finally, there is one more mention, on the Dormition of the Mother of God dvera from 1510: “Io Bogdan Voivode… hath this dvera made in the church built by our father, at the Monastery of Putna”. There are other three inscriptions showing that the masters working here were monks. The authors of the 1510 dvera embroidered their names on one of its margins: Mardarius, Joseph and Zosimas are the oldest-known embroiderers of the Romanian Middle Ages.

During the time of Stephen the Great, the Moldavian art of embroidery stepped into a new era: its monumental stage. Original elements became more numerous. The main characteristics of this artistic period were solemnity, balance, rigor, minimalism, perfect proportions, the intensity of expression, a predominance of figurative over ornamental expression and unity. The epitaphioi represent best all these traits. The dveras have a certain poetic quality due to their dynamic composition with tall characters, whose bodies are full of impetus, and with an understatedly warm palette and temperate gestures.

The dates of the embroideries and fabrics are as following: the three pokrovetses are dated 1481 and feature the Lamentation and the Communion of the Apostles; the Ascension dvera is dated 1484; the Dormition of the Mother of God dvera was made in 1485; then there is the 1489 epitrachelion; the epitaphios with the Lamentation is dated 1490; the Crucifixion dvera, 1500; the lectern covers, 1502, 1504 and 1506; the Dormition of the Mother of God dvera, 1510; Lady Maria Voichița’s tomb cover, 1513; Lady Maria Despina’s tomb cover was made in 1515 on the commission of Bogdan III; Stephen the Great’s undated tomb cover was commissioned by Prince Bogdan sometime between 1504 and 1517; Maria Asanina Palaiologina’s tomb cover and Maria Despina’s second tomb cover are both undated. The sequence of dates proves the continuity of activity at the Putna embroidery workshop during the reigns of Stephen the Great and Bogdan III.

These pieces were made in the four decades between 1480 and 1520, a period which could be considered the golden age of Romanian embroidery history.

There is no mention of an embroidery made at Putna after the death of Bogdan III. What happened after 1517 remains a mystery. Most probably, creative activity declined or even stopped. This proves the role and importance of princely patronage over Putna’s embroidery workshop. The Moldavian embroidery art would see later renewals: during the reign of Alexandru Lăpușneanu, through the excellent works from Slatina Monastery; at the end of the 16th century, at Sucevița Monastery, under the patronage of princes Ieremia and Simion Movilă; in the mid-17th century, at the time of Prince Vasile Lupu. Thus, the peaks of Moldavian embroidery art coincided with the reigns of the great Moldavian princes, while the main creation workshops were established and grew within the monasteries that these princes founded and designated as their necropolises. Therefore, the art of embroidery had at its finest moments an aulic character.

Most of the Putna embroideries were made in the Byzantine technique. The pieces were worked on a hard textile background (usually on cotton, linen or a combination of both). The much more delicate overlayer was made of silk. The master copied on it the drawing from a pasteboard and marked the drawing lines with (usually red) silk thread. Where the design required embroidery with metallic thread, the embroiderer first made a structure of parallel textile threads (linen or cotton) of various thicknesses and very close to each other, which conferred relief to the work. Then the artist minutely counted the textile threads and fixed the metallic ones perpendicularly at variable horizontal distances from one another. The embroiderer created, with the help of the fixing silk threads, various geometric shapes which conferred plasticity to the drawing. On the areas embroidered in silk thread (faces, hands, feet), the artist did not use the textile thread structure and sewed directly on the silk overlayer.

The embroideries made during the time of Stephen the Great, especially those made at Putna Monastery, are highly pictural. The silk thread follows a precise contour and sewing points are organized either concentrically or in parallel lines, rendering the character’s anatomy. Silk was dyed in a wide array of colors and various tones were obtained by twisting threads of different colors. Sometimes, the characters’ faces contrast with a chromatic background (made of silk as well), which somehow corresponds to the proplasma layer in Byzantine iconography and proves a relationship between embroidery and painting techniques. Pictoriality is ensured by creating “light” and “shadow” areas using geometrical shapes. Often, silver and silver-gilt threads were twisted around a silk thread, creating a contrast between gold and the color of the silk. The metallic thread could be sewn with monochrome or polychrome silk threads, obtaining an even larger palette. Due to this chromatic interplay, some embroideries reached an exquisite aesthetic level, being dubbed “needle painting”. Many of them stand next to the best paintings and mosaics.

The embroidery and fabric treasury of Putna Monastery is one of the most representative in the whole Orthodox world. The number of items and their inscriptions prove that an embroidery workshop functioned here during the reigns of Stephen the Great and Bogdan III. The pieces made here are part of the prodigious Byzantine artistic tradition, which also inspired the art from the south of the Danube River. Serbian art is represented at Putna through an exceptional item of embroidery, the epitaphios made by Helena, consort of the Serbian despot of Serres. She became nun Euthymia, the oldest-known embroiderer in the Orthodox world. The fact that this epitaphios is part of Putna’s collection proves the relations between mediaeval Moldavia and Serbia.

The craftsmen who worked in the Putna workshop perfectly mastered the secrets of embroidery and were able to produce original pieces. The tomb cover of Maria Asanina Palaiologina, the consort of Stephen the Great, is a unique piece in the whole post-Byzantine world. Decorated with Byzantine monograms and symbols, it is a lively expression of what was Moldavia during the time of Stephen the Great: a “Byzantium after Byzantium”.

Finally, the embroidered icons from the collection of Putna Monastery reveal the authentic Christian spirit, which Byzantium inherited from the first Christian centuries. Essentially, they express the truth revealed by Jesus Christ. As “icons painted with the needle”, these embroideries are not only unique and priceless works of art, but also evidence of the age-old continuity of the Church of the Son of God, the One Church in which God and man work together, transforming the visible world into a path towards the Kingdom of love, towards the Kingdom of Him Who “is love” (1 John 4:16). God’s love descends upon man when he perceives saintly beauty. And “he who abides in love abides in God”. This is the legacy of Putna’s embroideries and of their commissioners and makers.