Part 5

Infant’s cap. Worked in 1815 by Isabella Woodbridge Sheldon, of Hartford, after she became the wife of George Lecky Cornell, of Red Hook, Long Island (where South Brooklyn now is), for her daughter Sarah. Owned by her granddaughter, Isabel Douglas Curtis (Mrs. Charles B. Curtis). Mrs. Cornell was a niece of Pamela Parsons. (See Plate 92.)]

[Illustration: _Plate 94._

Altar cloth of Greek design, 92 inches long. Worked by Isabel Douglas Curtis—Mrs. Charles B. Curtis, granddaughter of Isabella Woodbridge Sheldon (Mrs. George Lecky Cornell); see Plate 93—in 1911 for Christ Church, Rye, Westchester County, New York. It has on the top the words: “Holy, holy, holy,” etc. The center contains symbols, such as I H S, the crown of thorns, etc. Owned by the church named.]

[Illustration: _Plate 95._

Detail of altar cloth shown in Plate 94.]

[Illustration: _Plate 96._

Sample from tape lace. Made for window-curtains by Isabel Douglas Curtis (Mrs. Charles B. Curtis), of New York City, about 1895. Owned by the Litchfield Historical Society.]

[Illustration: _Plate 97._

Tape lace, 6 inches wide, 2 yards long. Made by Rachel Tracy Noyes, daughter of William Curtis Noyes and his first wife, Anne Tracy. She married Charles Edward Whitehead, of New York City. The lace was made about 1880. She died in 1900. Owned by the Litchfield Historical Society.]

[Illustration: _Plate 98._

Tape lace and darned net. Made 1881–1885 by Miss Esther Thompson, of Litchfield, Connecticut, when she was a teacher in Middletown, Connecticut. Owned by Miss Thompson.]

[Illustration: _Plate 99._

Tape laces. Made by Mrs. Butterworth, a friend of Miss Esther Thompson. Owned by Miss Thompson.]

[Illustration: _Plate 100._

Half-tone of photostat copy of photograph in the New York Public Library, of a table cover, 42 inches square. Made by Mrs. Hannah MacLaren Shepherd-Wolff. Three thousand hours were spent on this lace, which was finished in 1910 when the maker was eighty years old.]

[Illustration: _Plate 101._

“Lavoro a maglia quadra,” or “lacis,” darned netting, or filet, still in the frame. Made by Mrs. Edward Rowland (Sarah Belknap), of Waterbury, Connecticut, born June 27, 1837, for a lace exhibition at the Hartford Athenæum in February, 1907. Mrs. Rowland learned to make lace in Florence, Italy. Owned by Miss Edith Beach, of West Hartford, Connecticut.]

[Illustration: _Plate 102._

The same kind of lace as that shown in Plate 101, sewed on satin and trimmed with pillow and bobbin lace. Made by Elsie Belknap, born in Hartford, Connecticut, November 4, 1863; married Mr. R. E. K. Whiting; died September 23, 1907. She was taught to make lace by Miss Edith Beach. Owned by Miss Edith Beach, of West Hartford, Connecticut.]

[Illustration: _Plate 103._

Chalice-veil. Designed and embroidered from a number of pieces of sixteenth-century Italian cut-work—reticella and punto reale—by Miss Margaret Taylor Johnstone, of New York and Paris. Exhibited at the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts, and also at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, in the early years of this century. It is signed M. T. J. in the border. Original photograph reduced one-third.

Some thirty years ago Miss Johnstone gathered together a little class of workers at the Society of Decorative Art in New York City and taught them these stitches. The work prospered, with the aid of designs found in various public and private collections, and continued for over a quarter of a century, when this association, which had been the mother-society of beautiful embroidery in New York, ceased to exist. Miss Johnstone also prepared the rearrangement of the Lace Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, in 1906–1907, on lines suggested by her to the expert, Frau Kubasek, of Vienna, who was brought to New York by the Museum for this purpose. She brought with her a trunk of four hundred specimens of embroidery and lace collected by Miss Johnstone from friends in Paris and New York, and labelled and classified according to her own extended classification. These specimens were accepted for the Museum by the Director, Sir Caspar Purdon Clarke, whose love of decorative art was a benefit to the Museum. Since that time the collection of laces has so increased that it is probably surpassed only by that in the Victoria and Albert Museum, of London.]

[Illustration: _Plate 104._

_Figure 1._ Blue paper pattern for lace to be made on a pillow with thread on bobbins. Part of the design was worked and is shown in the small piece of lace beside the pattern. Made and owned by Miss Edith Beach, of West Hartford, Connecticut.

_Figure 2._ Lace made on a pillow with thread on bobbins. Although similar in appearance to tape lace, it is quite different, being entirely worked with linen thread on bobbins, on a pillow. Made and owned by Miss Edith Beach.]

[Illustration: _Plate 105._

Lace, unfinished, being made for a fan, on a pillow with thread on bobbins. The design is adapted for this purpose from one in _The Art of Bobbin Lace_, by Louisa A. Tebbs, Chapman and Hall, Ltd., London, 1908. Made and owned by Miss Edith Beach, of West Hartford, Connecticut.]

[Illustration: _Plate 106._

Blue paper pattern for making Venetian point lace (needle-point), and the lace in process of making. It consists mainly of very fine, close buttonholing with a sewing needle. Owned by Miss Edith Beach, of West Hartford, Connecticut. These laces have been made since 1904 by Miss Beach. She was taught lace-making by her aunt, Sarah Belknap (Mrs. Edward Rowland); see Plate 101.]

[Illustration: _Plate 107._

_Figure 1_ (at top). Machine-made net in the piece.

_Figure 2._ The same kind of net with stitches dropped at regular intervals to serve as guides for cutting it into footing, or strips for embroidering or darning as trimming lace.

Between _Figures 1_ and _2_ are shown samples of beading, or purling, to be sewn on the edge of the trimming lace.

(_Plates 107–109 show net made by machine at the “lace shop” established and operated by Dean Walker in Medway, Massachusetts, between 1818 and 1827. See Introduction, pp. 4–5; also Plate 110 and caption. The originals shown are in the possession of Dean Walker’s granddaughter, Miss Sophia A. Walker, of New York City._)]

[Illustration: _Plate 108._

_Figure 1_ (at top). Trimming lace on machine-made net. Darned by Clarissa Richardson, about 1830, on net made by Dean Walker at the “lace shop.” (See caption of Plate 107.) It consists of two pieces of straight-edge fagotted together.

_Figure 2._ Trimming lace on machine-made net. Darned by Julia Adams (Mrs. Horatio Mason) on net made at Dean Walker’s “lace shop.” Purling is added to the waved edge.]

[Illustration: _Plate 109._

Cap embroidered on machine-made net. Made about 1820 by Julia Adams (Mrs. Horatio Mason), the maternal grandmother of the present owner, Miss Sophia A. Walker, of New York City. (See caption of Plate 108, _Figure 2_.) The net was made by Dean Walker at the “lace shop” in Medway. The frill of the cap has been removed for another use.]

[Illustration: _Plate 110._

Silver medal awarded to Dean Walker in 1825 by the Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania, for the net made at his “lace shop” in Medway, Massachusetts. (See Introduction, pp. 4–5; also Plates 107–109 and captions.) Owned by William T. Walker, a great-grandson of Dean Walker.]

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Text from images has been appended to the caption.

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.

All misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.