These are to all intents and purposes the three great styles of lace. England had no style: she copied Flemish, Brussels, and Mechlin laces. Ireland, on the contrary, copied Italian in her Irish crotchet and Carrick-ma-cross (in style only, but not workmanship), and adapted Lille and Mechlin and Brussels and Buckingham in her Limerick lace.
The student must next make herself familiar with the methods pursued by the old lace-workers, and here the difficulty commences. All lace is either Needlepoint, pillow-made, or machine-made. Needlepoint explains itself. Every thread of it is made with a needle on a parchment pattern, and only two stitches are used, buttonhole and a double-loop which is really a buttonhole stitch.
BRUSSELS LAPPET.
Nineteenth Century.
(S.K.M Collection.)
This can be clearly understood by referring to Charts Nos. [I.] and [II.], where the two Brussels grounds are shown. The Needlepoint ground, No. [I.], is formed by a buttonhole stitch, which loops over again before taking the next. The pillow-made ground, No. [II.], shows the threads plaited or twisted together to form a hexagonal or a diamond-shaped network. This is all the difference between needle-made and pillow-made lace, and in itself helps to identify in many instances its country and period when it was produced. All the early Italian laces were Needlepoint, and all the early French laces were the same. All the Flemish laces (including Brussels) were pillow-made, and mixed laces in any of these countries are of later make. Italy adapted the Flemish pillow-lace, and produced Genoese and Milanese guipures, in addition to the coarse imitation of Reticella which she now made by plaiting threads on the pillow. Brussels adopted the needle-made motifs and grounds of Italy, and produced perhaps her finest lace, weaving her beautiful designs and outlines on the pillow, and afterwards filling the spaces with needle-made jours and brides, as in Point d'Angleterre.
A study of Chart [II.] will show the different style of grounds or réseaux of both Needlepoint and pillow-made lace, the buttonhole grounds being either of "brides" with or without picots, or buttonhole loops, as in Brussels, and Alençon (with a straight thread whipping across to strengthen the ground), loops buttonholed over all as in Argentan, or made of tiny worked hexagons with separate buttonholed threads around them as in Argentella. The pillow-made grounds are made of two plaited or twisted threads, except in the case of Valenciennes, when it is made of four threads throughout (hence its durability). In Brussels, it will be noted, the threads are twisted twice to commence the mesh. These meet two other threads, and are plaited four times, dividing into two again, and performing the same twist, the whole making a hexagon rather longer than round. Mechlin has precisely the same ground, only that the threads are plaited twice instead of four times, as in Brussels, making the hexagon roundish instead of long.
The ground of Lille lace is of exactly the same shape as Valenciennes, but is composed of two threads twisted loosely twice each side of the diamond, and that of Valenciennes being made of four threads plaited.
With the aid of these little charts, a remembrance of the various styles and a few actual specimens of lace, and a powerful magnifying glass, it is not beyond the power of any reader of this little book to become expert in the identification of old lace.
REAL "POINT DE GAZE" (NEEDLE-MADE GROUND).
(Author's Collection.)