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"The sumptuary law of 1723 has taken away," writes the author of two thick books on Spanish commerce, "all pretence for importing all sorts of point and lace of white and black silk which are not the manufactures of our kingdom. The Spaniards acted on Lord Verulam's policy—that foreign superfluities should be prohibited[[289]]—for by so doing you either banish them or gain the manufacture." But towards the middle of the eighteenth century there are notices of constant seizures of vessels bound from St. Malo to Cadiz, freighted with gold and silver lace. The Eagle, French vessel, taken by Captain Carr, in 1745, bore cases to the value of £150,000.[[290]] In 1789 we also read that the exports of lace from the port of Marseilles alone to Cadiz exceeded £500,000,[[291]] and the author of the Apendice a la Educacion Popular[[292]] states that "all the five qualities (of lace) come from foreign lands, and the greater varieties of coarser ones."
Gold and silver lace were made at Barcelona, Talavera de la Reyna, Valencia and Seville. In 1808 that of Seville was flourishing. The gold is badly prepared, having a red cast. The manufacture of blonde is almost entirely confined to Catalonia, where it is made in many of the villages along the sea-coast, and especially in the city of Barcelona. In 1809 it gave employment to 12,000 persons, a number which in 1869 was augmented to 34,000.
There are no large manufactories, and the trade is in the hands of women and children, who make it on their own account, and as they please.[[293]] Swinburne, who visited Spain in 1775, writes: "The women of the hamlets were busy with their bobbins making black lace, some of which, of the coarser kind, is spun out of the leaf of the aloe. It is curious, but of little use, for it grows mucilaginous with washing." He adds: "At Barcelona there is a great trade in thread lace."[[294]] Larruga, in his Memorias,[[295]] mentions a manufacture of gold and silver lace which had been set up lately in Madrid, and in another place he[[296]] mentions lace made at La Mancha,[[297]] where "the industry of lace has existed at Almagro from time immemorial." Don Manuel Fernandez and Donna Rita Lambert, his wife, natives of Madrid, established in this town in 1766 a manufacture of silk and thread lace. This industry also existed at Granatula, Manzanares and other villages in La Mancha. At Zamora "lace and blonde were made in private houses." In Sempere Historia del Lujo[[298]] we find that in the ordinance issued in 1723 the "introduction of every sort of edgings or foreign laces was prohibited; the only kinds allowed were those made in the country." Cabanillas writes[[299]] that at Novelda a third part of the inhabitants made lace, and that "more than 2,000 among women and children worked at this industry, and the natives themselves hawked their wares about the country."[[300]]
The laces of New Castile were exported to America, to which colonies, in 1723, the sumptuary laws were extended, as more necessary than in Spain, "many families having been ruined," says Ustariz, "by the great quantities of fine lace and gold stuffs they purchased of foreign manufacture, by which means Spanish America is drained of many millions of dollars."[[301]] A Spanish lace-maker does not earn on an average two reals (5d.) a day.[[302]]
The national mantilla is, of course, the principal piece manufactured. Of the three kinds which, de rigueur, form the toilette of the Spanish lady, the first is composed of white blonde, a most unbecoming contrast to their sallow, olive complexion; this is only used on state occasions—birthdays, bull-fights, and Easter Mondays. The second is black blonde, trimmed with a deep lace. The third, "mantilla de tiro," for ordinary wear, is made of black silk, trimmed with velvet. A Spanish woman's mantilla is held sacred by law, and cannot be seized for debt.[[303]] The silk employed for the lace is of a superior quality. Near Barcelona is a silk-spinning manufactory, whose products are specially used for the blondes of the country. Spanish silk laces do not equal in workmanship those of Bayeux and Chantilly, either in the firmness of the ground or regularity of the pattern. The annual produce of this industry scarcely amounts to £80,000.[[304]]
Specimens of Barcelona white lace have been forwarded to us from Spain, bearing the dates of 1810, 1820, 1830 and 1840. Some have much resemblance to the fabric of Lille—clear hexagonal ground, with the pattern worked in one coarse thread; others are of a double ground, the designs flowers, bearing evidence of a Flemish origin.[[305]]
Spain sent to the International Exhibitions, together with her black and white mantillas, fanciful laces gaily embroidered in coloured silks and gold thread—an ancient fabric lately revived, but constantly mentioned in the inventories of the French Court of the seventeenth century, and also by the lady whose letters we have already quoted. When describing a visit to Donna Teresa de Toledo, who received her in bed, she writes: "She had several little pillows tied with ribbons and trimmed with broad fine lace. She had 'lasses' all of flowers of point de Spain in silk and gold, which looked very pretty."[[306]]
The finest specimen of Spanish work exhibited in 1862 was a mantilla of white blonde, the ground a light guipure, the pattern, wreaths of flowers supported by Cupids. In the official report on Lace and Embroidery at the International Exhibition of that year, we read that "the manufacture of black and white Spanish lace shows considerable progress since 1851, both in respect of design and fabrication. The black mantillas vary in value from £4 to £50, and upwards of 20,000 persons are said to be employed in their manufacture."
Before concluding our account of Spanish lace, we must allude to the "dentelles de Moresse," supposed by M. Francisque Michel[[307]] to be of Iberian origin, fabricated by the descendants of the Moors who remained in Spain and embraced Christianity. These points are named in the above-mentioned "Révolte des Passemens," where the author thus announces their arrival at the fair of St. Germain:—