Fig. 32.—Border of Needlepoint Lace made in France about 1740-1750, the clear hexagonal mesh ground, which is compactly stitched, being usually regarded as characteristic of the point de France made at Argentan.

In Belgium, Brussels has acquired some celebrity for needle-made laces. These, however, are chiefly in imitation of those made at Alençon, but the toilé is of less compact texture and sharpness in definition of pattern. Brussels needlepoint lace is often worked with meshed grounds made on a pillow, and a plain thread is used as a cordonnet for their patterns instead of a thread overcast with buttonhole stitches as in the French needlepoint laces. Note the bright sharp outline to the various ornamental details in Pl. V. fig. 20b.

Fig. 33.—Shirt decorated with Insertions of Flat Needlepoint Lace. (English, 17th century. Victoria and Albert Museum.)

Plate IV.

Fig. 18.—CHARLES GASPARD GUILLAUME DE VINTI-MILLE,WEARING LACE SIMILAR IN STYLE OFDESIGN SHOWN IN FIG. 19. About 1730.
Fig. 19.—PORTION OF FLOUNCE, NEEDLEPOINT LACECOPIED AT THE BURANO LACE SCHOOL FROM THEORIGINAL OF THE SO-CALLED “POINT DE VENISEÀ BRIDES PICOTÉES.”
17th century. Formerly belonging to Pope Clement XIII., butnow the property of the queen of Italy. The design and work,however, are indistinguishable from those of important flounces of“Point de France.” The pattern consists of repetitions of twovertically-arranged groups of fantastic pine-apples and vases withflowers, intermixed with bold rococo bands and large leaf devices.The hexagonal meshes of the ground, although similar to theVenetian “brides picotées,” are much akin to the buttonholestitched ground of “Point d’Argentan.” (Victoria and AlbertMuseum.)
A    Fig. 20.    B
A.—A LAPPET OF “POINT DE VENISE À RÉSEAU.”
The conventional character of the pseudo-leaf and floral formscontrasts with that of the realistic designs of contemporary Frenchlaces. Italian. Early 18th century.
B.—A LAPPET OF FINE “POINT D’ALENÇON.”
Louis XV. period. The variety of the fillings of geometric designis particularly remarkable in this specimen, as is the buttonholestitched cordonnat or outline to the various ornamental forms.
Fig. 21.—BORDER OF FRENCH NEEDLEPOINT LACE,WITH GROUND OF “RÉSEAU ROSACÉ.” 18th century.

Plate VI.

Fig. 22.—JABOT OR CRAVAT OF PILLOW-MADE LACE. Brussels. Late 17th century. (Victoria and Albert Museum.)
Fig. 23.—JABOT OR CRAVAT OF PILLOW-MADE LACE OF FANTASTIC FLORAL DESIGN, THE GROUND OF WHICH IS COMPOSED OF LITTLE FLOWERS AND LEAVES ARRANGED WITHIN SMALL OPENWORK VERTICAL STRIPS.
Brussels. 18th century. (Victoria and Albert Museum.)

Needlepoint lace has also been occasionally produced in England. Whilst the character of its design in the early 17th century was rather more primitive, as a rule, than that of the contemporary Italian, the method of its workmanship is virtually the same and an interesting specimen of English needle-made lace inset into an early 17th-century shirt is illustrated in fig. 33. Specimens of needle-made work done by English school children may be met with in samplers of the 17th and 18th centuries. Needlepoint lace is successfully made at Youghal, Kenmare and New Ross in Ireland, where of late years attention has been given to the study of designs for it. The lace-making school at Burano near Venice produces hand-made laces which are, to a great extent, careful reproductions of the more celebrated classes of point laces, such as “punto in aria,” “rose point de Venise,” “point de Venise à réseau,” “point d’Alençon,” “point d’Argentan” and others. Some good needlepoint lace is made in Bohemia and elsewhere in the Austrian empire.

Pillow-made Lace.—Pillow-made lace is built upon no substructure corresponding with a skeleton thread pattern such as is used for needlepoint lace, but is the representation of a pattern obtained by twisting and plaiting threads.

These patterns were never so strictly geometric in style as those adopted for the earliest point lace making from the antecedent cut linen and drawn thread embroideries. Curved forms, almost at the outset of pillow lace, seem to have been found easy of execution (see lower border, Pl. II. fig. 3); its texture was more lissom and less crisp and wiry in appearance than that of contemporary needle-made lace. The early twisted and plaited thread laces, which had the appearance of small cords merging into one another, were soon succeeded by laces of similar make but with flattened and broader lines more like fine braids or tapes (Pl. I. fig. 2, and Pl. fig. 10). But pillow laces of this tapey character must not be confused with laces in which actual tape or braid is used. That peculiar class of lace-work does not arise until after the beginning of the 17th century when the weaving of tape is said to have commenced in Flanders. In England this sort of tape-lace dates no farther back than 1747, when two Dutchmen named Lanfort were invited by an English firm to set up tape looms in Manchester.