Chats on Old Lace and Needlework

by Emily Leigh Lowes

It is almost impossible, even from the best of photographic illustrations, to learn all the intricacies of identification. The photographs clearly show style, but it needs specimens of the actual lace to show method of working. From the illustrations in this book, specially selected from the South Kensington Collection, and from specimens in my own collection, every variety of style may be easily understood, as they have been particularly selected to show each point of difference. Commencing with the earliest form of lacework—i.e., "cutworke"—nothing will better show this than the "Sampler" specimen, which, half way down, shows two rows entirely typical of this kind of early lace-making—for such it is. A little lower, examples of drawn threadwork are seen, while the upper portion illustrates satin stitch patterns, which more properly belong to embroidery.

The ancient collar from the South Kensington Collection, page [149], shows some of the finest developments of cutwork, when the foundation of linen was entirely dispensed with. The work is exceedingly fine, the threads being no coarser, indeed in many cases less so, than the fine linen it adorns. This is known as Reticella, or "punto in aria." The last name is applicable to all the laces of Venice which succeeded Reticella, and means lace literally made out of nothing or without any building foundation.

The specimen is still of the same class, but where before the design was simple geometric square and pointed as in all the early lace, it now takes on the lovely flowing scroll of the Renaissance that marks the latter half of the seventeenth century.

The same grand styles may be noted all through the great period of Italian Needlepoint lace. It will be seen in a lesser degree in the Guipure laces of Milan and Genoa, but here the cramping influence of the Flemish school shows itself distinctly.

ITALIAN ECCLESIASTICAL LACE.

FLEMISH OR GENOESE ECCLESIASTICAL LACE.
(S.K.M Collection.)

The same bold lines may be noted in the early Needlepoint lace of France, which had not then become sufficiently sure of her capacity to develop a style of her own, and all show the Renaissance spirit. Afterwards when the superb Point de France was at its height of manufacture along with grand outline and exquisite handicraft, the influence of the mighty monarch Louis XIV. asserted itself and although the lace itself commands unbounded admiration, fantastic little notions, symbolical and naturalistic, showed itself—as an illustration page [75]: little figures representing "the Indian," "canopied crown over a sealed lady," trees growing all manner of bizarre fruit and flowers, all symbolical of Louis the Magnificent's unbounded power and sway. In the South Kensington Museum there is a still finer specimen, which has not yet been photographed, I believe—a magnificent flounce, about eighteen inches wide (really two boot top pieces joined), of what is known as pseudo-Oriental character, which shows amongst the usual exquisite scrolling no less than seven different figures on each piece—viz., an Indian, a violinist in dress of Louis XIV. period, a lady riding on a bird, two other ladies, one with a pet dog and the other a parrot, a lady violinist, and another lady seated before a toilet-table. These little figures are not more than three-quarters of an inch high, but are worked with such minuteness that even the tiny features are shown. This fantastic adoption of the human figure was copied in Italy and Flanders. The finest specimens of Point d'Angleterre (Brussels) show the same designs; and it may broadly be stated that all lace with figures is of the Louis XIV. period, and over two hundred years old.

Succeeding this period came the dainty elegance of the French laces, when the workers of Alençon and Argentan had developed a purely French style. Note the Point d'Alençon, illustration page [83], where the characteristics of the period are fully shown. The illustration shows a mixed lace, which only recently has been acknowledged by the South Kensington people as Point d'Argentan. Along with the typical Argentan ground of the upper portion is the fine Alençon mesh and varied jours of the border. This also is Louis XIV. style. The lappet shown next is exceedingly instructive, as till quite lately the people who professed to understand lace agreed to call this Genoese, although it was quite unlike anything else made there. This lappet was so labelled at South Kensington, but now is admittedly Argentella (or little Argentan). It is remarkably like Alençon, being of the same period, the only points of difference being that the design is not outlined with a raised Cordonnet (though in different places of the design a raised and purled Cordonnet is often stitched on it) and the special ground (partridge eye) which is agreed to denote "Argentella" lace—page [83]. It is sometimes called the may-flower ground, but this is somewhat misleading as that design occurs in other laces. The only other great style is that of Flanders, which at its earliest period had received no influence from the Renaissance that had seized the southern countries of Europe and was still in the grip of mediæval art. It was not until Italian influence permeated France that Flemish lace perceptibly altered in character.