France is faithful to her traditions in maintaining a lively and graceful taste in lace-making. Fashion of late years has called for ampler and more boldly effective laces, readily produced with both braids and cords and far less intricate needle or pillow work than was required for the dainty and smaller laces of earlier date.
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| Fig. 25.—Collar and Berthe of Irish Crochet Lace. |
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| Fig. 26.—Collar of Irish Crochet Lace. |
In Belgium the social and economic conditions are, as they have been in the past, more conducive and more favourable than elsewhere to lace-making at a sufficiently remunerative rate of wages. The production of hand-made laces in Belgium was in 1900 greater than that of France. The principal modern needle-made lace of Belgium is the “Point de Gaze”; “Duchesse” and Bruges laces are the chief pillow-made laces; whilst “Point Appliqué” and “Plat Appliqué” are frequently the results not only of combining needle-made and pillow work, but also of using them in conjunction with machine-made net. Ireland is the best producer of that substantial looped-thread work known as crochet (see figs. 25, 26, 27), which must be regarded as a hand-made lace fabric although not classifiable as a needlepoint or pillow lace. It is also quite distinct in character from pseudo-laces, which are really embroideries with a lace-like appearance, e.g. embroideries on net, cut and embroidered cambrics and fine linen. For such as these Ireland maintains a reputation in its admirable Limerick and Carrickmacross laces, made not only in Limerick and Carrickmacross, but also in Kinsale, Newry, Crossmaglen and elsewhere. The demand from France for Irish crochet is now far beyond the supply, a condition which leads not only to the rapid repetition by Irish workers of old patterns, but tends also to a gradual debasement of both texture and ornament. Attempts have been made to counteract this tendency, with some success, as the specimens of Irish crochet in figs. 25, 26 and 27 indicate.
Plate III.
 | | Fig. 8.—MARY, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE, WEARINGA COIF AND CUFFS OF RETICELLA LACE. | | National Portrait Gallery. Dated 1614. |  | | Fig. 11.—JAMES II. WEARING A JABOT AND CUFFSOF RAISED NEEDLEPOINT LACE | | By Riley. National Portrait Gallery. About 1685. | | (Figs. 8 and 11, photo by Emery Walker.) |
|  | | Fig. 9.—HENRI II., DUC DE MONTMORENCY, WEARING AFALLING LACE COLLAR. By Le Nain. Louvre. About 1628. | | (By permission of Messrs Braun, Clement & Co.,Dornach (Alsace), and Paris.) |  | | Fig. 10.—SCALLOPPED COLLAR OF TAPE-LIKEPILLOW-MADE LACE. | | Possibly of English early 17th-century work. Its texture istypical of a development in pillow-lace-making later than that ofthe lower edge of “merletti a piombini” in Pl. II. fig. 3. |  | | Fig. 12.—JABOT OF NEEDLEPOINT LACE WORKEDPARTLY IN RELIEF, AND USUALLY KNOWN AS“GROS POINT DE VENISE.” | | Middle of 17th century. Conventional scrolling stems with off-shootingpseudo-blossoms and leafs are specially characteristic. |
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Plate IV.
 | | Fig. 13.—MME VERBIEST, WEARING PILLOW-MADELACE À RÉSEAU. | | From the family group by Gonzales Coquer. Buckingham Palace.About 1664. | | (By permission of Messrs Braun, Clement & Co.,Dornach (Alsace), and Paris.) |  | | Fig. 14.—PIECE OF PILLOW-MADE LACE USUALLYKNOWN AS “POINT DE FLANDRES À BRIDES.” | | Of the middle of the 17th century, the designs for which wereoften adaptations from those made for such needlepoint lace as thatof the Jabot in fig. 12. |
|  | | Fig. 15.—PRINCESS MARIA TERESA STUART, WEARINGA FLOUNCE OR TABLIER OF LACE SIMILAR TOTHAT IN FIG. 17. Dated 1695. | | From a group by Largilliere. National Portrait Gallery.(Photo by Emery Walker.) |  | | Fig. 16.—FLOUNCE OF PILLOW-MADE LACE À RÉSEAU. | | Flemish, of the middle of the 17th century. This lace is usuallythought to be the earliest type of “Point d’Angleterre” in contradistinctionto the “Point de Flandres” (fig. 14). |  | | Fig. 17—VERY DELICATE NEEDLEPOINT LACE WITHCLUSTERS OF SMALL RELIEF WORK. | | Venetian, middle of the 17th century, and often called “rose-pointlace,” and sometimes “Point de Neige.” |
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| Fig. 27.—Lady’s Sleeve of Irish Crochet Lace. |
An appreciable amount of pillow-made lace is annually supplied from Devonshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Northampton, but it is bought almost wholly for home use. The English laces are made almost entirely in accordance with the precedents of the 19th century—that is to say, in definite lengths and widths, as for borders, insertions and flounces, although large shaped articles, such as panels for dresses, long sleeves complete skirts, jackets, blouses, and fancifully shaped collars of considerable dimensions have of late been freely made elsewhere. To make such things entirely of lace necessitates many modifications in the ordinary methods; the English lace-workers are slow to adapt their work in the manner requisite, and hence are far behind in the race to respond to the fashionable demand. No countries succeed so well in promptly answering the variable call of fashion as France and Belgium.