Seven Centuries of Lace 7

Seven Centuries of Lace 7

The fact is, of course, acknowledged that linen cloth was used for

bed-linen, towels, and other articles. For albs, linen, and linen only,

was ordered by the rubric; therefore, if one sees an alb represented,

whether by painting or sculpture, the intention to represent linen is

implied. And, if ornamented, the intention to represent linen lace is

clear in many instances, although the painter or sculptor cannot, of

course, give us a facsimile as satisfying as the photographs we have

here.

 

I will here refer to the well-known pictures by Giotto and his school.

One in the Louvre, of the birth of St. John the Baptist, has most

unmistakable lacework on the linen of the bed, and on the long towel

gracefully depicted as hanging from the shoulder of one of the

attendants.

 

A fresco, also by Giotto, in the Basilica of Assisi, represents the

figure of the Divine Infant in a shirt with reticello ornament.

 

Duccio di Buoninsegna (1260-1340) and Lorenzetti (1276-1348) may be

mentioned among many others, as in their paintings linen cloths are

rendered with unmistakable needle-point ornament. It is quite clear that

these laces were in general use before the fourteenth century, although

it is not surprising that few specimens remain to us.

 

The pattern of the lacis, or sfilatura, in Plate No. 7, is geometrical,

with an Eastern tendency, as in Pope Boniface's alb. It is singularly

like the dresses of saints in some of the Ravenna mosaics, and the more

ancient stitches can be seen in the specimen given, but there is no

buttonhole stitch.

 

In describing the design of this piece of old lacis, I am again tempted

to quote M. Gayet's description of lace found in the Coptic tomb. He

says: "It is lace as it is made to-day. All the threads of the réseau

are drawn together to one point, and the meshes start from the centre

like rays crossing and recrossing and thus forming various patterns."

The pieces of network from these Coptic tombs, preserved in the Victoria

and Albert Museum fully justify this description, and no doubt the

Eastern tradition can be traced in Plate 7.

 

As we have seen, the ornament of the earliest laces was simple, or

quasi-simple, in design; but even then the craving to represent life

often appears. The band down the front of the Assisi alb, for example,

has a row of stags thoroughly subservient to the distinctly polygonal

idea.

 

In Plate 11 a portion of an early lacis or modano border is represented.

Conventional peacocks and numerous smaller birds are added to the

central design of I.H.S. in Gothic letters--quaint little angels are at

the ends of some of the rays. The inscription has so far found no

interpreter.

 

The altar-cloth in Plate 12 may possibly have been made for Richard II.;

his two wives were both French, and this piece has the stag, which was

the royal device.

 

No. 1 of Plate 13 is an interesting border of Sicilian lacis, the design

Eastern, introducing the gammadion, the netting is all made obliquely.

Two stitches are used for the pattern, the punto a rammendo and also the

punto scritto. A vandyked border of punto avorio is added.

 

In Plate 14 the squares of lacis or modano are alternated with linen

worked with reticello. The design in each square is different.

 

The effect of the gold thread added to the pattern worked in punto a

tela, or linen-stitch, in Plate 15, is very good, and there is much

variety in the execution of this piece.

 

No. 1 of Plate 16 is lacis of possibly German work with a design of

vine-leaves and grapes worked in punto a tela. No. 2 is a vandyked

border of English lacis with a pattern of large and small blossoms--the

larger ones resemble Tudor roses. Both these pieces have the punto

riccio introduced.

 

Plate 17 is a specimen of lacis called buratto in Italy, as the netting

is twisted and not knotted. The pattern is punto a rammendo, worked with

very coarse thread, but the result is satisfactory. This piece must be

early sixteenth-century work.

 

The two examples of buratto work in the following plate, Plate 18, are

much more finely worked with punto a rammendo. The narrow border is

probably the earliest.

 

Alençon has certainly more romantic associations than any other

lace-producing town. For the making of lace at Alençon did not begin

only with the establishment of that industry in 1660, of which I shall

speak later. More than a century before that date Marguérite

d'Angoulême, Duchess of Alençon, and afterwards Queen of Navarre, while

living at her castle of Alençon, worked and caused to be worked,

beautiful ornaments for albs and other articles for use at the altar of

St. Leonard's, her parish church. Some of these are preserved in the

Alençon Museum; a specimen of early lacis is especially interesting,

worked in squares with radiating threads, and the centres worked with

punto a stuora as in Plate 17. The specimen of lacis, with gold thread

introduced similar to that in Plate 15, may very likely be the very

piece alluded to by Clément Marot in his odes to Queen Marguérite. She

died in 1549.

 

"Elle adonnait son courage

A faire maint bel ouvrage

Dessus la toile et encore a

Joindre la soie et or."

"Vous d'un pareil exercice

Mariez par artifice

Dessus la toile a maint tract

L'or et la soie en pourtract."

 

Another interesting record of this Queen is to be found in a manuscript

of the expenses of "Madame Marguérite," sister of the King (Francis I.).

"For 60 yards fine Florence lace for her collars."[M] This lace was

probably fine punto in aria worked in points, as in Plate 30, but it

may, of course, also have been bobbin-made lace similar to the edging in

Plate 29.

 

[M] Manuscript in "Bibliothèque Nationale." MS. FF2, 10,394.

 

The earliest example of tela tirata here is a piece representing St.

Francis of Assisi and events of his life, Plate 19. Under the saint's

feet is an inscription imperfectly rendered by the pious worker. St.

Michael is above, and still higher is the Madonna and many emblems or

perhaps fancies of the worker. This lace may have been worked in Assisi

itself in the thirteenth or fourteenth century.

 

Another early specimen has a man in armour with a helmet of

thirteenth-century shape. _See_ Plate 20.

 

Another piece, Plate 21, which is very fine and was no doubt worked for

a wedding, represents a bride and bridegroom standing dressed in

sixteenth-century costume and surrounded by attendants. Below is a

hawking party with dogs.

 

The infant's swaddling band, Plate 22, is interesting, as these bands

are no longer ornamented.

 

The specimen of tela tirata No. 1, in Plate 25, is of singular make, the

whole piece to be worked being prepared by drawing threads at regular

intervals. These same threads are then darned in with a needle to form

the pattern. In this specimen a small piece has been unpicked to show

the way the threads were drawn before beginning the work. This method

has, I believe, not hitherto been noticed, as the plan of cutting

threads and leaving the pattern in the linen is more usual; but, of

course, no cut threads at all remaining in the work rendered it more

even and durable, and so justified the extra trouble.

 

No. 2 of Plate 25, is a piece of tela tirata with punto reale similar,

though coarser in make, to the work on the Assisi alb.

 

Three specimens of sixteenth-century linen work, Plate 28, are reduced

in size; one is on a huckaback with a fine macramé fringe. The drawn

work of this piece is beautifully done. The cloth in the centre is

worked in punto riccio and has a border of punto avorio and a curious

fringe. The third is cut and worked in punto riccio and reticello, and

has a border of bobbin-made lace.

 

In Plate 29 we have two examples of reticello, the linen almost entirely

cut away and hidden by the different stitches. The punto a stuora is

still used for the centres, as we have seen in the earlier laces, and

the punto a festone appears for the first time. In the second example we

have a curious combination of three laces--an upper border worked almost

exactly like the very early lace of Plate 7; then comes an insertion of

reticello, and finally a border of Venetian bobbin-lace (merletto a

fuselli). This is early fifteenth-century work.

 

We now come to the third division made in needle-point lace--the punto

in aria, which may be said to be the starting-point of all subsequent

needle-point laces. No linen or netting being used the worker had to

construct her lace--in aria--out of nothing, and a splendid opening it

gave, as we shall now see, for invention and for execution. This punto

in aria, worked into points, was extensively used for personal

adornment: these points gave the name of pizzi to lace, a name which

still survives in Italy as comprehensive of all lace, as the name

dentelle is in France. The first examples I give here are the two

dentated (or vandyked) borders of Plate 31.

 

The chalice cover, Plate 32, is a very interesting combination of

reticello and punto in aria; the lines of the cut-linen foundation are

carried across and form a lattice behind the punto in aria devices. The

beautifully worked waved pattern circling round the design may be

intended to represent St. Peter's chains: the Saint stands with the

scriptures in one hand and the Keys in the other, and has a winged

cherub on each side; the edge is of punto in aria.

 

The reticello pattern of Plate 33 is beautifully rendered in punto

avorio and punto in aria. This piece, unlike the specimens given before,

has no linen foundation, and therefore is classed as punto in aria and

not as reticello or cutwork.

 

The corporal border of Plate 34, of very conventional floral pattern is,

I think, undoubtedly of German early seventeenth-century work.

 

The border of the Venetian cloth in Plate 35, is a very fine specimen of

punto in aria. The two insertions, of which one is given, are alike.

They have strange winged and tailed animals alternating with scrolls and