QUEEN ELIZABETH: RUFF OF VENETIAN POINT.
(National Portrait Gallery.)
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A SHORT HISTORY OF LACE IN ENGLAND
Early samplers—Lace worn by Queen Elizabeth; by the early Stuarts—Extravagant use of lace in time of Charles II.—William and Mary's lace bill.
Even at the risk of being considered utterly unpatriotic, I cannot give much more than faint praise to the lace-making of England up to the present date, when notable efforts are at last being made to raise the poor imitation of the Continental schools to something more in accordance with artistic conception of what a great National Art might become.
As in all countries, lace-making apparently commenced in its early English stages by drawn-thread and cutwork. In many of the charming old sixteenth-century English samplers just as exquisite cut-work, and its natural successor Reticella, or "punto in aria" is shown, as in the finest examples of the Venetian schools. Unfortunately, however, English fine lace-making came to a sudden and inexplicable end, although we know that any quantity of fine Venetian, exquisite Brussels, or Flemish laces, and the wonderful Point de France were being imported into the country and lavishly used.