Part 19

_Needlepoint Lace._--The way in which the early Venetian "punto in aria" was made corresponds with that in which needlepoint lace is now worked. The pattern is first drawn upon a piece of parchment. The parchment is then stitched to two pieces of linen. Upon the leading lines drawn on the parchment a thread is laid, and fastened through to the parchment and linen by means of stitches, thus constructing a skeleton thread pattern (see left-hand part of fig. 30). Those portions which are to be represented as the "clothing" or _toilé_ are usually worked as indicated in the enlarged diagram (fig. 29), and then edged as a rule with buttonhole stitching (fig. 28). Between these _toilé_ portions of the pattern are worked ties (_brides_) or meshes (_réseaux_), and thus the various parts united into one fabric are wrought on to the face of the parchment pattern and reproducing it (see right-hand part of fig. 30). A knife is passed between the two pieces of linen at the back of the parchment, cutting the stitches which have passed through the parchment and linen, and so releasing the lace itself from its pattern parchment. In the earlier stages, the lace was made in lengths to serve as insertions (_passements_) and also in vandykes (_dentelles_) to serve as edgings. Later on insertions and vandykes were made in one piece. All of such were at first of a geometric style of pattern (Pl. figs. 3-5 and 6).

[Illustration: FIG. 30.--Parchment Pattern showing work in progress: the more complete lace is on the right half of the pattern.]

[Illustration: FIG. 31.]

Following closely upon them came the freer style of design already mentioned, without and then with links or ties--_brides_--interspersed between the various details of the patterns (Pl. II. fig. 7), which were of flat tape-like texture. In elaborate specimens of this flat point lace some lace workers occasionally used gold thread with the white thread. These flat laces ("Punto in Aria") are also called "flat Venetian point." About 1640 "rose (raised) point" laces began to be made (Pl. III. fig. 12). They were done in relief and those of bold design with stronger reliefs are called "gros point de Venise." Lace of this latter class was used for altar cloths, flounces, _jabots_ or neckcloths which hung beneath the chin over the breast (Pl. III. fig. 11), as well as for trimming the turned-over tops of jack boots. _Tabliers_ and ladies' aprons were also made of such lace. In these no regular ground was introduced. All sorts of minute embellishments, like little knots, stars and loops or _picots_, were worked on to the irregularly arranged _brides_ or ties holding the main patterns together, and the more dainty of these raised laces (Pl. fig. 17) exemplify the most subtle uses to which the buttonhole stitch appears capable of being put in making ornaments. But about 1660 came laces with _brides_ or ties arranged in a honeycomb reticulation or regular ground. To them succeeded lace in which the compact relief gave place to daintier and lighter material combined with a ground of meshes or _réseau_. The needle-made meshes were sometimes of single and sometimes of double threads. A diagram is given of an ordinary method of making such meshes (fig. 31). At the end of the 17th century the lightest of the Venetian needlepoint laces were made; and this class which was of the filmiest texture is usually known as "point de Venise à réseau" (Pl. V. fig. 20a). It was contemporary with the needle-made French laces of Alençon and Argentan[8] that became famous towards the latter part of the 17th century (Pl. V. fig. 20b). "Point d'Argentan" has been thought to be especially distinguished on account of its delicate honeycomb ground of hexagonally arranged _brides_ (fig. 32), a peculiarity already referred to in certain antecedent Venetian point laces. Often intermixed with this hexagonal _brides_ ground is the fine-meshed ground or _réseau_ (fig. 20b), which has been held to be distinctive of "point d'Alençon." But the styles of patterns and the methods of working them, with rich variety of insertions or _modes_, with the _brodé_ or _cordonnet_ of raised buttonhole stitched edging, are alike in Argentan and Alençon needle-made laces (Pl. V. fig. 20b and fig. 32). Besides the hexagonal _brides_ ground and the ground of meshes another variety of grounding (_réseau rosacé_) was used in certain Alençon designs. This ground consisted of buttonhole-stitched skeleton hexagons within each of which was worked a small hexagon of _toilé_ connected with the outer surrounding hexagon by means of six little ties or _brides_ (Pl. V. fig. 21). Lace with this particular ground has been called "Argentella," and some writers have thought that it was a specialty of Genoese or Venetian work. But the character of the work and the style of the floral patterns are those of Alençon laces. The industry at Argentan was virtually an offshoot of that nurtured at Alençon, where "lacis," "cut work" and "vélin" (work on parchment) had been made for years before the well-developed needle-made "point d'Alençon" came into vogue under the favouring patronage of the state-aided lace company mentioned as having been formed in 1665. Madame Despierre in her _Histoire du point d'Alençon_ gives an interesting and trustworthy account of the industry.

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration: FIG. 33.--Shirt decorated with Insertions of Flat Needlepoint Lace. (English, 17th century. Victoria and Albert Museum.)]

[Illustration: PLATE IV.

FIG. 18.--CHARLES GASPARD GUILLAUME DE VINTI-MILLE, WEARING LACE SIMILAR IN STYLE OF DESIGN SHOWN IN FIG. 19. About 1730.

FIG. 19.--PORTION OF FLOUNCE, NEEDLEPOINT LACE COPIED AT THE BURANO LACE SCHOOL FROM THE ORIGINAL OF THE SO-CALLED "POINT DE VENISE À BRIDES PICOTÉES."

17th century. Formerly belonging to Pope Clement XIII., but now 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 two vertically-arranged groups of fantastic pine-apples and vases with flowers, intermixed with bold rococo bands and large leaf devices. The hexagonal meshes of the ground, although similar to the Venetian "brides picotées," are much akin to the buttonhole stitched ground of "Point d'Argentan." (Victoria and Albert Museum.)

FIG. 20.

A.--A LAPPET OF "POINT DE VENISE À RÉSEAU."

The conventional character of the pseudo-leaf and floral forms contrasts with that of the realistic designs of contemporary French laces. Italian. Early 18th century.

B.--A LAPPET OF FINE "POINT D'ALENÇON." Louis XV. period. The variety of the fillings of geometric design is particularly remarkable in this specimen, as is the buttonhole stitched cordonnat or outline to the various ornamental forms.

FIG. 21.--BORDER OF FRENCH NEEDLEPOINT LACE, WITH GROUND OF "RÉSEAU ROSACÉ." 18th century.]

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration: FIG. 34.--Diagram showing six Bobbins in use.]

The process by which lace is made on the pillow is roughly and briefly as follows. A pattern is first drawn upon a piece of paper or parchment. It is then pricked with holes by a skilled "pattern pricker," who determines where the principal pins shall be stuck for guiding the threads. This pricked pattern is then fastened to the pillow. The pillow or cushion varies in shape in different countries. Some lace-makers use a circular pad, backed with a flat board, in order that it may be placed upon a table and easily moved. Other lace-workers use a well-stuffed round pillow or short bolster, flattened at the two ends, so that they may hold it conveniently on their laps. From the upper part of pillow with the pattern fastened on it hang the threads from the bobbins. The bobbin threads thus hang across the pattern. Fig. 34 shows the commencement, for instance, of a double set of three-thread plaitings. The compact portion in a pillow lace has a woven appearance (fig. 35).

[Illustration: FIG. 35.]

About the middle of the 17th century pillow lace of formal scroll patterns somewhat in imitation of those for point lace was made, chiefly in Flanders. The earlier of these had grounds of ties or _brides_ and was often called "point de Flandres" (Pl. fig. 14) in contradistinction to scroll patterns with a mesh ground, which were called "point d'Angleterre" (Pl. fig. 16). Into Spain and France much lace from Venice and Flanders was imported as well as into England, where from the 16th century the manufacture of the simple pattern "bone lace" by peasants in the midland and southern counties was still being carried on. In Charles II.'s time its manufacture was threatened with extinction by the preference given to the more artistic and finer Flemish laces. The importation of the latter was accordingly prohibited. Dealers in Flemish lace sought to evade the prohibitions by calling certain of their laces "point d'Angleterre," and smuggling them into England. But smuggling was made so difficult that English dealers were glad to obtain the services of Flemish lace-makers and to induce them to settle in England. It is from some such cause that the better 17th- and 18th-century English pillow laces bear resemblance to pillow laces of Brussels, of Mechlin and of Valenciennes.

[Illustration: FIG. 36.--Border of English Pillow-made (Devonshire) Lace in the style of a Brussels design of the middle of the 18th century.]

[Illustration: FIG. 37--Border of English (Bucks. or Beds.) Pillow-made Lace in the Style of a Mechlin design of the latter part of the 18th century.]

As skill in the European lace-making developed soon after the middle of the 17th century, patterns and particular plaitings came to be identified with certain localities. Mechlin, for instance, enjoyed a high reputation for her productions. The chief technical features of this pillow lace lie in the plaiting of the meshes, and the outlining of the clothing or _toilé_ with a thread _cordonnet_. The ordinary Mechlin mesh is hexagonal in shape. Four of the sides are of double twisted threads, two are of four threads plaited three times (fig. 39).

[Illustration: FIG. 38--Border of Pillow-made Lace, Mechlin, from a design similar to such as was used for point d'Alençon of the Louis XV. period.]

[Illustration: FIG. 39.--Mechlin Mesh.]

In Brussels pillow lace, which has greater variety of design, the mesh is also hexagonal; but in contrast with the Mechlin mesh whilst four of its sides are of double-twisted threads the other two are of four threads plaited four times (fig. 41). The finer specimens of Brussels lace are remarkable for the fidelity and grace with which the botanical forms in many of its patterns are rendered (Pl. VI. fig. 23). These are mainly reproductions or adaptations of designs for point d'Alençon, and the soft quality imparted to them in the texture of pillow-made lace contrasts with the harder and more crisp appearance in needlepoint lace. An example of dainty Brussels pillow lace is given in fig. 42. In the Brussels pillow lace a delicate modelling effect is often imparted to the close textures of the flowers by means of pressing them with a bone instrument which gives concave shapes to petals and leaves, the edges of which consist in part of slightly raised _cordonnet_ of compact plaited work.

[Illustration: FIG. 40.--Border of Pillow-made Lace, Mechlin, end of the 18th century.]

[Illustration: FIG. 41.--Enlargement of Brussels Mesh.]

[Illustration: FIG. 42.--Portion of a Wedding Veil, 7 ft. 6 in. × 6 ft. 6 in., of Pillow-made Lace, Brussels, late 18th century. The design consists of light leafy garlands of orange blossoms and other flowers daintily festooned. Little feathery spirals and stars are powdered over the ground, which is of Brussels _vrai réseau_. In the centre upon a more open ground of pillow-made hexagonal _brides_ is a group of two birds, one flying towards the other which appears ready to take wing from its nest; an oval frame containing two hearts pierced by an arrow, and a hymeneal torch. Throughout this veil is a profusion of pillow renderings of various _modes_, the _réseau rosacé_, star devices, &c. The ornamental devices are partly applied and partly worked into the ground (Victoria and Albert Museum).]

Honiton pillow lace resembles Brussels lace, but in most of the English pillow laces (Devonshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire) the _réseau_ is of a simple character (fig. 43). As a rule, English lace is made with a rather coarser thread than that used in the older Flemish laces. In real Flemish Valenciennes lace there are no twisted sides to the mesh; all are closely plaited (fig. 44) and as a rule the shape of the mesh is diamond but without the openings as shown in fig. 44. No outline or _cordonnet_ to define the pattern is used in Valenciennes lace (see fig. 45). Much lace of the Valenciennes type (fig. 54) is made at Ypres. Besides these distinctive classes of pillow-like laces, there are others in which equal care in plaiting and twisting threads is displayed, though the character of the design is comparatively simple, as for instance in ordinary pillow laces from Italy, from the Auvergne, from Buckinghamshire, or rude and primitive as in laces from Crete, southern Spain and Russia. Pillow lace-making in Crete is now said to be extinct. The laces were made chiefly of silk. The patterns in many specimens are outlined with one, two or three bright-coloured silken threads. Uniformity in simple character of design may also be observed in many Italian, Spanish, Bohemian, Swedish and Russian pillow laces (see the lower edge of fig. 46).

[Illustration: FIG. 43.]

[Illustration: FIG. 44.]

[Illustration: FIG. 45.--Lappet of delicate Pillow-made Lace, Valenciennes, about 1750. The peculiarity of Valenciennes lace is the filmy cambric-like texture and the absence of any cordonnet to define the separate parts of the ornament such as is used in needlepoint lace of Alençon, and in pillow Mechlin and Brussels lace.]

_Guipure._--This name is often applied to needlepoint and pillow laces in which the ground consists of ties or _brides_, but it more properly designates a kind of lace or "passementerie," made with gimp of fine wires whipped round with silk, and with cotton thread. An earlier kind of gimp was formed with "Cartisane," a little strip of thin parchment or vellum covered with silk, gold or silver thread. These stiff gimp threads, formed into a pattern, were held together by stitches worked with the needle. Gold and silver thread laces have been usually made on the pillow, though gold thread has been used with fine effect in 17th-century Italian needlepoint laces.

[Illustration: FIG. 46.--Border to a Cloth. The wide part bearing the double-headed eagle of Russia is of drawn thread embroidery: the scalloped edging is of Russian pillow-made lace, though the style of its pattern is often seen in pillow laces made by peasants in Danubian provinces as well as in the south of Spain.]

[Illustration: FIG. 47.]

[Illustration: FIG. 48.]

[Illustration: FIG. 49.--Section of Lace Machine.]

[Illustration: FIG. 50.--Machine-made Lace in imitation of 16th-century Needlepoint "Reticella" Lace.]

[Illustration: FIG. 51.--Border of Machine-made Lace in the style of 17th-century Pillow Guipure Lace.]

[Illustration: FIG. 52.--Border of Machine-made Lace in imitation of 17th-century Pillow Lace.]

[Illustration: FIG. 53.--Machine-made Trimming Border in imitation of Irish Crochet Lace.]

[Illustration: FIG. 54.--A Piece of Hand-made Pillow Lace, Belgian (Ypres), 20th century. (The machine imitation is given in fig. 55.)]

[Illustration: FIG. 55.--Machine-made Lace in imitation of the Hand-made Specimen of fig. 54. (Nottingham, 20th century.)]

[Illustration: FIG. 56.--Small Borders (a) Hand-made and (b) Machine-made Lace Valenciennes. (Nottingham, 20th century.)]

[Illustration: FIG. 57.--Specimen of Hand-made Pillow Lace.]

[Illustration: FIG. 58.--Specimen of Machine-made Lace in which the twisting and plaiting of the threads are identical with those of the hand-made specimen of fig. 57. (Nottingham, 20th century.)]