CHAPTER VI

.

SPAIN.

"Of Point d'Espagne a rich cornet, Two night rails and a scarf beset, With a large lace and collaret." --Evelyn, _Voyage to Marryland_.

"Hat laced with gold Point d'Espagne."[266] --Wardrobe of a Pretty Fellow, _Roderick Random_.

"The Count: 'Voglio una punta di Spagna, larga, massiccia, ben lavorata. Del disegno, della ricchezza, ma niente di luccicante."--Goldoni, _L'Avaro fastoso_.

Spanish point, in its day, has been as celebrated as that of Flanders and Italy. Tradition declares Spain to have learned the art from Italy, whence she communicated it to Flanders, who, in return, taught Spain how to make pillow-lace. Though the dress of the Court, guided not by the impulse of fashion, but by sumptuary laws, gave little encouragement to the fabric, on the other hand, the numberless images of our Lady and other patron saints, dressed and redressed daily in the richest vestments, together with the albs of the priests and the decorations of the altars, caused an immense consumption of lace for ecclesiastical purposes. "Of so great value," says Beckford, "were the laces of these favoured Madonnas, that in 1787 the Marchioness of Cogalhudo, wife of the eldest son of the semi-royal race of Medino Coeli, was appointed Mistress of the Robes to our Lady of La Solidad, at Madrid, a much-coveted office."

{91}[Illustration: Fig. 43.

THE WORK-ROOM.--(From an engraving of the Sixteenth Century after Stradan.)]

Point d'Espagne, in the usual sense of the word, signifies that gold or silver lace, sometimes embroidered in colours, so largely consumed in France during the earlier years of Louis XIV.'s reign. Ornaments made of plaited and twisted gold and silver threads were produced in Spain during the seventeenth century, and mention of them is to be found in the ordinances of that time. Towards the end of the century, Narciso Felin, author of a work published in Barcelona, quoted by M. Aubry, writes that, "edgings of all sorts of gold, silver, silk thread and aloe fibres are made at Barcelona with greater perfection than in Flanders." In the sixteenth century, Flanders was part of the Spanish dominions, and from Flanders Spain imported artistic goods, linen and lace included. Mr. A. S. Cole concludes from this that the Barcelona lace-making was more or less an imitation of that which had previously existed in Spanish Flanders.

{92}Apart from this, the gold and silver lace of Cyprus, Venice, Lucca and Genoa preceded that from Flanders, and it appears that Spain was later in the field of artistic lace-making than either Italy, Flanders or France. Even the celebrity of the gold point d'Espagne is probably due more to the use of gold lace by Spanish grandees,[267] than to the production in Spain of gold lace. The name point d'Espagne was, I think, a commercial one, given to gold lace by French makers.[268]

Dominique de Sera, in his _Livre de Lingerie_, published in 1584, especially mentions that many of the patterns of point couppé and passement given were collected by him during his travels in Spain; and in this he is probably correct, for as early as 1562, in the Great Wardrobe Account of Queen Elizabeth, we have noted down sixteen yards of black Spanish _laquei_ (lace) for ruffs, price 5s.

The early pattern-books contain designs to be worked in gold and silver,[269] a manufacture said to have been carried on chiefly by the Jews,[270] as indeed it is in many parts of Europe at the present time; an idea which strengthens on finding that two years after the expulsion of that persecuted tribe from the country, in 1492, the most Catholic kings found it necessary to pass a law prohibiting the importation of gold lace from Lucca and Florence, except such as was necessary for ecclesiastical purposes. Mrs. Palliser was of opinion that thread lace was manufactured in Spain at this epoch, for, "in the cathedral of Granada is preserved a lace alb presented to the church by Ferdinand and Isabella, one of the few relics of ecclesiastical grandeur still extant in the country." The late Cardinal Wiseman stated to Mrs. Palliser that he had himself officiated in this vestment, which was valued at 10,000 {93}crowns. But the following passage from Señor Riano greatly affects the value of what would otherwise be a fact of importance adduced by Mrs. Palliser. "Notwithstanding the opinion of so competent an authority as Mrs. Palliser, I doubt the statement, finding no evidence to support it, that thread lace of a very fine or artistic kind was ever made in Spain, or exported as an article of commerce during early times. The lace alb which Mrs. Palliser mentions to prove this as existing at Granada, a gift of Ferdinand and Isabella in the fifteenth century, is Flemish lace of the seventeenth."[271]

The sumptuous "Spanish point," the white thread heavy arabesque lace, was an Italian production originally. It was imported for the Spanish churches and then imitated in the convents by the nuns, but was little known to the commercial world of Europe until the dissolution of the Spanish monasteries[272] in 1830, when the most splendid specimens of nun's work came suddenly into the market; not only the heavy lace generally designated as "Spanish point," but pieces of the very finest description (like point de Venise), so exquisite as to have been the work only of those whose "time was not money," and whose devotion to the Church and to their favourite saints rendered this work a labour of love, when in plying their needles they called to mind its destination. Among the illustrations are some photographs received from Rome of some curious relics of old Spanish conventual work, parchment patterns with the lace in progress. They were found in the Convent of Jesù Bambino, and belonged to some Spanish nuns who, in bygone ages, taught the art to the novices. None of the present inmates can give further information respecting them. The work, like all point, was executed in separate pieces given out to the different nuns and then joined together by a more skilful hand. In Fig. 44 we see the pattern traced out by two threads fixed in their places by small stitches made at intervals by a needle and aloe[273] thread working from underneath. The réseau ground is alone worked in. We see the thread left as by Sister Felice Vittoria when she last plied her task.

{94}Fig. 45 has the pearled ground, the pattern traced as in the other. Loops of a coarser thread are placed at the corners, either to fasten the parchment to a light frame, like a schoolboy's slate, or to attach it to a cushion. In Fig. 46 the pattern is just worked.

[Illustration: Fig. 44.

UNFINISHED WORK OF A SPANISH NUN.]

PLATE XXIX.

[Illustration: SPANISH. MODERN THREAD BOBBIN LACE MADE AT ALMAGRO.--Slightly reduced.]

PLATE XXX.

[Illustration: SPANISH, BLONDE. WHITE SILK DARNING ON MACHINE NET.--Nineteenth century. Much reduced.

Photos by A. Dryden from private collections.]

_To face page 94._

{95}A possible reference to lace is found in Father Fr. Marcos Antonio de Campos,[274] in his book, _Microscosmia y gobierno Universal del Hombre Crestiano_, when he writes, "I will not be silent, and fail to mention the time lost these last years in the manufacture of _cadenetas_, a work of thread combined with gold and silver; this extravagance and excess reached such a point that hundreds and thousands of ducats were spent in this work, in which, besides destroying the eyesight, wasting away the lives, and rendering consumptive the women who worked it, and preventing them from spending their time with more advantage to their souls, a few ounces of thread and years of time were wasted with so unsatisfactory a result. I ask myself, after the fancy has passed away, will the lady or gentleman find that the chemises that cost them fifty ducats, or the _basquina_ (petticoats) that cost them three hundred, are worth half their price?"

[Illustration: Fig. 45.

UNFINISHED WORK OF A SPANISH NUN.]

"The most important of Spanish ordinances[275] relating to Spanish art and industry are those which appeared in the {96}fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Toleda and Seville, both remarkable centres for all kinds of artistic productions. In neither of these, nor in the sixteenth and seventeenth century ordinances relating to Granada--another art-centre--is there any mention of lace.

[Illustration: Fig. 46.

UNFINISHED WORK OF A SPANISH NUN.]

"In the laws which were passed by Ferdinand and Isabella at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, no mention is made of lace, though numerous {97}details of costumes are named. It will be seen from these remarks on Spanish lace that we give to Italy the credit of producing the artistic and valuable point lace, which unexpectedly came out of Spain after the dissolution of the monasteries."

The ordinance of Philip III, against the wearing of lace, dated 1623, which enjoined "simples rabats, sans aucune invention de point couppé ou passement" for the men, with fraises and manchettes in like trim for the ladies, both too without starch,[276] and which extended to gold and silver lace, was suspended during the matrimonial visit of Prince Charles;[277] indeed, the Queen of Spain herself sent him, on his arrival at Madrid, ten trunks of richly-laced linen. The Prince had travelled incognito, and was supposed to be ill-provided. Whether the surmises of her Majesty were correct, we cannot presume to affirm; we only know that, on the occasion of the Spanish voyage, a charge of two dozen and a half laced shirts, at twelve shillings each, for the Prince's eight footmen, appears in the wardrobe accounts.[278]

The best account of Spanish manners of the seventeenth century will be found in the already-mentioned _Letters of a Lady's Travels in Spain_. "Under the vertingale of black taffety," she writes, "they wear a dozen or more petticoats, one finer than the other, of rich stuffs trimmed with lace of gold and silver, to the girdle. They wear at all times a white garment called _sabenqua_; it is made of the finest English lace, and four ells in compass. I have seen some worth five or six hundred crowns;... so great is their vanity, they would rather have one of these lace _sabenquas_ than a dozen coarse ones;[279] and either lie in bed till it is washed, or dress themselves without any, which they frequently enough do." A number of portraits exist in the Spanish galleries, {98}especially by Velasquez and Carrêno, in which these extravagant costumes are fully portrayed, but in very few Spanish portraits of the seventeenth century does thread lace of the kind known to us as point d'Espagne, or de Venise ever appear. Describing her visit to the Princess of Monteleon, the author continues: "Her bed is of gold and green damask, lined with silver brocade, and trimmed with point de Spain.[280] Her sheets were laced round with an English lace, half an ell deep. The young Princess bade her maids bring in her wedding clothes. They brought in thirty silver baskets, so heavy, four women could carry only one basket; the linen and lace were not inferior to the rest." The writer continues to enumerate the garters, mantle, and even the curtains of the Princess's carriage, as trimmed with fine English thread, black and bone lace.[281]

Judging from this account, Spain at that period received her "dentelles d'Angleterre" from the Low Countries. Spain was early celebrated for its silk,[282] which with its coloured embroidered laces, and its gold and silver points, have always enjoyed a certain reputation. Of the latter, during the seventeenth century, we have constant mention in the wardrobe accounts and books of fashion of the French court. The description of the celebrated gold bed at Versailles, the interior lacings of the carriages, the velvet and brocade coats and dresses, "chamarrés de point d'Espagne," the laces of gold and coloured silk, would alone fill a volume to themselves.[283] {99}Narciso Felin, writing in the seventeenth century,[284] says that at that time "edgings of all sorts of gold,[285] silver, silk, thread, and aloe, are made there with greater perfection than in Flanders." Campany, another old author, carries the number of lace-makers to 12,000. The Spaniards are said, nevertheless, in 1634, to have derived a great part of their laces from the Île de France, while the French, on their part, preferred those of Flanders.[286] That the lace import was considered excessive is evident by the tariff of 1667; the import duty of twenty-five reals per pound on lace was augmented to two hundred and fifty reals. Much point was introduced into Spain at this time by way of Antwerp to Cadiz, under the name of "puntos de mosquito e de transillas."

Madame des Ursins, 1707, in a letter to Madame de Maintenon, ordering the layette of the Queen of Spain from Paris, writes: "If I were not afraid of offending those concerned in the purchase, in my avarice for the King of Spain's money, I would beg them to send a low-priced lace for the linen."

{100}This gold point d'Espagne was much fabricated for home consumption. The oldest banner of the Inquisition--that of Valladolid--is described as bordered with real point d'Espagne, of a curious Gothic (geometric) design. At the Auto-da-fè, the grandees of Spain and officers of the Holy Office marched attired in cloaks, with black and white crosses, edged with this gold lace. Silver point d'Espagne was also worn on the uniform of the Maestranza, a body of nobility formed into an order of chivalry at Seville, Ronda, Valencia and Granada. Even the saints were rigged out, especially St. Anthony, at Valencia, whose laced costume, periwig and ruffles are described as "glorious."

[Illustration: Fig. 47.

OLD SPANISH PILLOW-LACE.]

Point d'Espagne was likewise made in France, introduced by one Simon Châtelain, a Huguenot, about 1596, in return for which good services he received more protection than his advanced opinions warranted. Colbert, becoming minister in 1662, guaranteed to Simon his safety--a boon already refused to many by the intolerant spirit of the times. He died in 1675, having amassed a large fortune.[287] That the fabric prospered, the following entry in the wardrobe accounts of the Duke de Penthièvre, 1732, gives proof:[288] "Un bord de Point d'Espagne d'or de Paris, à fonds de réseau." "France," writes Anderson, "exports much lace into Spain."

PLATE XXXI.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE DUCHESSE DE MONTPENSIER, INFANTA OF SPAIN, SHOWING MANTILLA.

Middle of nineteenth century. M. de Versailles.]

_To face page 100._

{101}"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 {102}_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 {103}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 {104}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:--

"Il en vint que, le plus souvent. On disoit venir du Levant; Il en vint des bords de l'Ibère. Il en vint d'arriver n'agueres Des pays septentrionaux."

What these points were it would be difficult to state. In the inventory of Henry VIII. is marked down, "a purle of morisco work."

One of the pattern-books gives on its title-page--

"Dantique et Roboesque En comprenant aussi Moresque."

A second speaks of "Moreschi et arabesche."[308] A third is entitled, "Un livre de moresque."[309] A fourth, "Un livre de feuillages entrelatz et ouvrages moresques."[310] All we can say on the subject is, that the making cloths of chequered lace formed for a time the favourite employment of Moorish maidens, and they are still to be purchased, yellow with age, in the African cities of Tangier and Tetuan. They may be distinguished from those worked by Christian fingers from the absence of all animals in the pattern, the representation of living creatures, either in painting, sculpture, or embroidery, being strictly forbidden by Mahommedan law.

PLATE XXXII.

[Illustration: JEWISH.--Made in Syria. The pattern is only modern Torchon, but the knotting stitch is their peculiar tradition. Same size.]

PLATE XXXIII.

[Illustration: SPANISH.--The upper one is a copy of Italian lace clumsily made. The lower is probably a "dentelle de Moresse." Widths about 3½ in.

Photo by A. Dryden from Salviati & Co.'s Collection.]

_To face page 104._

{105}PORTUGAL.

Point lace was held in high estimation in Portugal. There was no regular manufacture; it formed the amusement of the nuns and a few women who worked at their own houses. The sumptuary law of 1749 put an end to all luxury among the laity. Even those who exposed such wares as laces in the streets were ordered to quit the town.[311]

In 1729,[312] when Barbara, sister of Joseph, King of Portugal, at seventeen years of age, married Ferdinand, Prince of Spain, before quitting Lisbon, she repaired to the church of the Madre de Dios, on the Tagus, and there solemnly offered to the Virgin the jewels and a dress of the richest Portuguese point she had worn on the day of her espousals. This lace is described as most magnificent, and was for near a century exhibited under a glass case to admiring eyes, till, at the French occupation of the Peninsula, the Duchesse d'Abrantès, or one of the Imperial generals, is supposed to have made off with it.[313] When Lisbon arose from her ashes after the terrible earthquake of 1755, the Marquis de Pombal founded large manufactures of lace, which were carried on under his auspices. Wraxall, in his _Memoirs_, mentions having visited them.

The fine points in relief of Italy and Spain were the result of such time and labour as to render them too costly for moderate means. Hence they were extensively counterfeited. The principal scroll of the pattern was formed by means of tape or linen cut out and sewn on, and the reliefs were produced by cords fixed and overcast after the work was finished, thus substituting linen and cords for parts of {106}the needlework. These counterfeit points were in France the occasion in 1669 of an ordinance.

[Illustration: Fig. 48.

BOBBIN-LACE.--(Madeira.)]

The modern laces of Portugal and Madeira closely resemble those of Spain; the wider for flounces are of silk: much narrow lace is made after the fashion of Mechlin. Both Spain and Portugal enjoy a certain reputation for their imitation white Chantilly lace. A considerable quantity of coarse white lace, very effective in pattern, was formerly made in Lisbon and the environs;[314] this was chiefly exported, _viâ_ Cadiz, to South America. Both black and white are {107}extensively made in the peninsula of Peniche, north of Lisbon (Estremadura Province), and employ the whole female population. Children at four years of age are sent to the lace school, and are seated at _almofadas_ (pillows) proportioned to their height, on which they soon learn to manage the bobbins, sometimes sixty dozen or more, with great dexterity.[315] The nuns of Odivales were, till the dissolution of the monasteries, famed for their lace fabricated of the fibres of the aloe.

[Illustration: Fig. 49.

BOBBIN-LACE.--(Brazil.)]

Pillow-lace was made at Madeira at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The coarse kind, a species of _dentelle torchon_, served for trimming pillow-cases and sheets--"seaming lace," as it was called (Fig. 49). Sometimes the threads of the linen were drawn out after the manner of cut-work; but the manufacture had entirely ceased until 1850 (circ.), when it was re-established by Mrs. Bayman.[316]

{108}Brazil makes a coarse narrow pillow-lace for home consumption.

The Republics of Central and South America show indications of lace-making, consisting chiefly of darned netting and drawn-work, the general characteristic of the lace of these countries. The lace-bordered handkerchiefs of Brazil, and the productions of Venezuela, with the borders of the linen trousers of the guachos, and the Creva lace of the blacks of the Province of Minas Geraes, are the finest specimens of drawn-work. The lace of Chili is of the old lozenge pattern, and men also appear to be employed on the work. In Paraguay there are two sorts of work--Nanduti or "toile d'arraignée," made in silk or thread by a needle on a cardboard pattern by the copper-coloured natives as an industry; also embroidery and drawn thread-work on linen, of which there are specimens in the Victoria and Albert Museum--all traditions of the European missionaries and traders who first colonised the country.

PLATE XXXIV.

[Illustration: SPANISH.--Pillow made nineteenth century. Réseau of two threads twisted and crossed. Slightly reduced.]

PLATE XXXV

[Illustration: PARAGUAY. "NANDUTI."--End of nineteenth century. Reduced rather over half.

Photos by A. Dryden from private collections.]

_To face page 108._

{109}