The building where is today installed the Wine Institute, Embroidery and Handicrafts was the former headquarters of the Guild of Industrial Embroidery of Madeira, which opened in 1958,built by the architect Fabrício Rodrigues. The institute has a museum site, redesigned in 1996, taking into account the need to build an environment of exposure to some of the most important regional crafts, including embroidery of Madeira and its temporal evolution, tapestry and inlaid wood.

The influence of the embroidery industry is of vital importance in the economy, culture and social life of the island since the second half of the nineteenth and early decades of the XX century.

This museum pays homage to a secular art, offering visitors a sample of items, true relics, which were produced over 150 years, attesting to the sophistication, luxury and perfection that has always been the common denominators of this art that by its attributes was transformed into a brand internationally recognized.

The nucleus brings together a collection consisting of pieces of Madeira embroidery produced between the late XIX Century, around 1860, up to 1930, the so-called Romantic period. Throughout these decades, Madeira embroidery was given to various uses, from clothing, lingerie and costumes, to bed linen, table linen, bath accessories and other detail that adorned rooms, living rooms and bathrooms. These pieces are framed in recreated environments of that era.