The most observant and most entertaining of all these tourists was Arthur Young, who wrote, in 1787, of the towns upon the coast of Cataluña: “The appearance of industry is as great as it can be: great numbers of fishing-boats and nets, with rows of good white houses on the sea-side; and while the men are active in their fisheries, the women are equally busy making lace.” Of Mataró he says: “It appears exceedingly industrious; some stocking-frames; lace-makers at every door…. I am sorry to add that here also the industry of catching lice in each other's heads is well understood.

“Pass Arrengs (Arenys), a large town … making thread lace universal here. They have thread from France; women earn ten to sixteen sous at it. Great industry, and in consequence a flourishing appearance. Canet, another large town, employed also in ship-building, fishing, and making lace…. Pass Malgrat, which is not so well built as the other towns, but much lace made in it…. Reach Figueras, whose inhabitants seem industrious and active. They make lace, cordage, and mats, and have many potteries of a common sort.”[58]

Lace-making prevails to-day all through this region of north-eastern Spain, particularly in the strip or zone of it including the valley of the Llobregat as far as Martorell, and which extends from Palamós to Barcelona. The towns which produce the greatest quantities of lace are Arenys de Mar, Malgrat, San Pol, Canet, and Arenys de Munt. In the last of these places an important Regional Exhibition of Lace was held in July of last year, the number of exhibitors amounting to one hundred and twenty-five. Due to the increasing production of underlinen and woven fabrics generally, or to other causes, lace-making has declined at Blanes, Pineda, Calella, and one or two other places. At San Celoni, Vallgorguina, San Vicente, San Andrés de Llevaneras, Argentona, Caldeta, and San Acisclo de Vilalta, lace is made by women who combine this work with dirtier and rougher labour in the field. Most of the lace made in these towns is therefore black.

XXXII
POINT LACE FAN, OF MUDEJAR DESIGN
(Modern)

In the spring of last year, an elaborate lace pocket-handkerchief (Plate [xxx].), designed by Señor Riquer, and executed in a traditional style of Cataluña, denominated locally the ret Catalá, was made in the old-established lace-factory of the widow of Mariano Castells in the town of Arenys de Mar, and offered by the Agricultural Institute of San Isidro as a wedding-present to Princess Ena of Battenberg. Two encajeras worked at this handkerchief under the personal direction of the widow Castells, and the time employed by them in making it was two months.

Plate xxxi. represents a small portion of a very original and beautiful lace curtain, ten feet high, designed by Señor Aguado, and executed, partly by Señorita Pilar Huguet (who superintended the work throughout), and partly by seventeen of this lady's pupils, at the School of Arts and Industries, Toledo. Although it is a hackneyed trope to declare that the ornamentation of the Spanish-Moors, whether in ivory, wood or metal, stone or plaster, was “delicate enough to seem of lacework,” I believe this to be the first occasion when such intricate and graceful motives have been actually reproduced in lace. The result of the experiment has proved surprisingly effective. The design is Spanish-Arabic in its purest form, recalling various arabesques upon the walls of the Alhambra, and includes thirty-three medallions which constitute the principal decorative scheme, a hundred and forty-eight palms or alharacas, and the Arabic expression “God is all-powerful,” repeated sixty-six times. The centre of the curtain consists in all of four hundred and forty-eight pieces. The broad cenefa or bordering, which runs right round the whole, contains, in Arabic, the following inscription: “This curtain was begun in the curso (course or series of classes) of the year 1903–1904, and terminated in the curso following, (Art) School of Toledo.” The style adopted throughout is that of Brussels, known erroneously as English point, although upon a coarser scale than is considered to be proper to this lace, the ground being executed by the needle, or in point-work, and the rest by bobbins.

Plate xxxii. represents a covering for a fan, also executed by Señorita Huguet, and also in the Brussels style. The design is a combination of Mudejar motives, such as conventional foliage and geometrical bordering, with a Spanish scutcheon and the double-headed eagle of the Emperor Charles the Fifth.

At the present day, and largely owing to the initiative and the skilled tuition of Señor Salvi, excellent lace is manufactured at Madrid, including reproductions—which have been generally admired in Great Britain and elsewhere—of the finest point or bobbin work of Malines, Manchester, and Venice.