XIII How to Identify Lace
Style—Historical data—Réseaux.
The great difficulty in attempting to identify any specimen of lace is that from time to time each country experimented in the manners and styles of other lace-making nations. The early Reticella workers copied what is known as the “Greek laces,” which were found in the islands of the Grecian Archipelago. Specimens of these laces found in the excavations of the last thirty years show practically no difference in method and style. France copied the Venetian laces, and at one period it is impossible to say whether a given specimen was made at Alençon or Venice. Italy, in turn, imitated the Flemish laces—to such an extent that even the authorities at South Kensington Museum, with all their leisure and opportunities for study and the magnificent specimens at hand for identification, admit that certain laces are either “Italian or Flemish.” Valenciennes was once a Flemish town, and though now French, preserves the Flemish character of lace, some specimens of Mechlin being so like Valenciennes as to baffle certainty.
Later, Brussels borrowed the hand-made grounds of France and Venice, and still later England copied Brussels, the guipures of Flanders, and the ground and style of Lille! All this makes the initial stages of the study of lace almost a hopeless quest. The various expensive volumes on lace, although splendidly written and gorgeously illustrated, leave the student with little more than an interesting and historical knowledge on which to base the actual study of lace. Here I may refer my readers to the one and only public collection of lace, I believe, in England—that of the South Kensington Museum, where specimens of lace from all countries and of all periods are shown, and where many magnificent bequests, that of Mrs. Bolckow especially, make the actual study of lace a possibility.
It is to be hoped that the governing body of the museum will, in its own good time, make this a pleasure instead of a pain. The specimens, the most important to the student, are placed in a low, dark corridor. Not a glimmer of light can be obtained on some of the cases, which also are upright, and placed so closely together that on attempting to see the topmost specimen on one side the unfortunate student literally bangs her head into the glass of the next one. A gentle complaint at the Directors’ office concerning the difficulty brought forth the astonishing information that there was no room at their disposal, but that in good time better light might be found. As these cases have been in identically the same place for the past fifteen years, one hopes that the “good time” may come before one becomes a “spectacled pantaloon” with no desire to see the wonders of that Palace of Art.
This little protest is made in the hope that the “Lords of the Committee” may possibly have their attention drawn to what amongst the lace-lovers and students in this country is a “standing grievance.”
It is almost impossible, even from the best of photographic illustrations, to learn all the intricacies of identification. The photographs clearly show style, but it needs specimens of the actual lace to show method of working. From the illustrations in this book, specially selected from the South Kensington Collection, and from specimens in my own collection, every variety of style may be easily understood, as they have been particularly selected to show each point of difference. Commencing with the earliest form of lacework—i.e., “cutworke”—nothing will better show this than the “Sampler” specimen, which, half way down, shows two rows entirely typical of this kind of early lace-making—for such it is. A little lower, examples of drawn threadwork are seen, while the upper portion illustrates satin stitch patterns, which more properly belong to embroidery.
The ancient collar from the South Kensington Collection, page 149, shows some of the finest developments of cutwork, when the foundation of linen was entirely dispensed with. The work is exceedingly fine, the threads being no coarser, indeed in many cases less so, than the fine linen it adorns. This is known as Reticella, or “punto in aria.” The last name is applicable to all the laces of Venice which succeeded Reticella, and means lace literally made out of nothing or without any building foundation.
The specimen is still of the same class, but where before the design was simple geometric square and pointed as in all the early lace, it now takes on the lovely flowing scroll of the Renaissance that marks the latter half of the seventeenth century.
The same grand styles may be noted all through the great period of Italian Needlepoint lace. It will be seen in a lesser degree in the Guipure laces of Milan and Genoa, but here the cramping influence of the Flemish school shows itself distinctly.
The same bold lines may be noted in the early Needlepoint lace of France, which had not then become sufficiently sure of her capacity to develop a style of her own, and all show the Renaissance spirit. Afterwards when the superb Point de France was at its height of manufacture along with grand outline and exquisite handicraft, the influence of the mighty monarch Louis XIV. asserted itself and although the lace itself commands unbounded admiration, fantastic little notions, symbolical and naturalistic, showed itself—as an illustration page 75: little figures representing “the Indian,” “canopied crown over a sealed lady,” trees growing all manner of bizarre fruit and flowers, all symbolical of Louis the Magnificent’s unbounded power and sway. In the South Kensington Museum there is a still finer specimen, which has not yet been photographed, I believe—a magnificent flounce, about eighteen inches wide (really two boot top pieces joined), of what is known as pseudo-Oriental character, which shows amongst the usual exquisite scrolling no less than seven different figures on each piece—viz., an Indian, a violinist in dress of Louis XIV. period, a lady riding on a bird, two other ladies, one with a pet dog and the other a parrot, a lady violinist, and another lady seated before a toilet-table. These little figures are not more than three-quarters of an inch high, but are worked with such minuteness that even the tiny features are shown. This fantastic adoption of the human figure was copied in Italy and Flanders. The finest specimens of Point d’Angleterre (Brussels) show the same designs; and it may broadly be stated that all lace with figures is of the Louis XIV. period, and over two hundred years old.
Succeeding this period came the dainty elegance of the French laces, when the workers of Alençon and Argentan had developed a purely French style. Note the Point d’Alençon, illustration page 83, where the characteristics of the period are fully shown. The illustration shows a mixed lace, which only recently has been acknowledged by the South Kensington people as Point d’Argentan. Along with the typical Argentan ground of the upper portion is the fine Alençon mesh and varied jours of the border. This also is Louis XIV. style. The lappet shown next is exceedingly instructive, as till quite lately the people who professed to understand lace agreed to call this Genoese, although it was quite unlike anything else made there. This lappet was so labelled at South Kensington, but now is admittedly Argentella (or little Argentan). It is remarkably like Alençon, being of the same period, the only points of difference being that the design is not outlined with a raised Cordonnet (though in different places of the design a raised and purled Cordonnet is often stitched on it) and the special ground (partridge eye) which is agreed to denote “Argentella” lace—page 83. It is sometimes called the may-flower ground, but this is somewhat misleading as that design occurs in other laces. The only other great style is that of Flanders, which at its earliest period had received no influence from the Renaissance that had seized the southern countries of Europe and was still in the grip of mediæval art. It was not until Italian influence permeated France that Flemish lace perceptibly altered in character.
These are to all intents and purposes the three great styles of lace. England had no style: she copied Flemish, Brussels, and Mechlin laces. Ireland, on the contrary, copied Italian in her Irish crotchet and Carrick-ma-cross (in style only, but not workmanship), and adapted Lille and Mechlin and Brussels and Buckingham in her Limerick lace.
The student must next make herself familiar with the methods pursued by the old lace-workers, and here the difficulty commences. All lace is either Needlepoint, pillow-made, or machine-made. Needlepoint explains itself. Every thread of it is made with a needle on a parchment pattern, and only two stitches are used, buttonhole and a double-loop which is really a buttonhole stitch.
This can be clearly understood by referring to Charts Nos. I. and II., where the two Brussels grounds are shown. The Needlepoint ground, No. I., is formed by a buttonhole stitch, which loops over again before taking the next. The pillow-made ground, No. II., shows the threads plaited or twisted together to form a hexagonal or a diamond-shaped network. This is all the difference between needle-made and pillow-made lace, and in itself helps to identify in many instances its country and period when it was produced. All the early Italian laces were Needlepoint, and all the early French laces were the same. All the Flemish laces (including Brussels) were pillow-made, and mixed laces in any of these countries are of later make. Italy adapted the Flemish pillow-lace, and produced Genoese and Milanese guipures, in addition to the coarse imitation of Reticella which she now made by plaiting threads on the pillow. Brussels adopted the needle-made motifs and grounds of Italy, and produced perhaps her finest lace, weaving her beautiful designs and outlines on the pillow, and afterwards filling the spaces with needle-made jours and brides, as in Point d’Angleterre.
A study of Chart II. will show the different style of grounds or réseaux of both Needlepoint and pillow-made lace, the buttonhole grounds being either of “brides” with or without picots, or buttonhole loops, as in Brussels, and Alençon (with a straight thread whipping across to strengthen the ground), loops buttonholed over all as in Argentan, or made of tiny worked hexagons with separate buttonholed threads around them as in Argentella. The pillow-made grounds are made of two plaited or twisted threads, except in the case of Valenciennes, when it is made of four threads throughout (hence its durability). In Brussels, it will be noted, the threads are twisted twice to commence the mesh. These meet two other threads, and are plaited four times, dividing into two again, and performing the same twist, the whole making a hexagon rather longer than round. Mechlin has precisely the same ground, only that the threads are plaited twice instead of four times, as in Brussels, making the hexagon roundish instead of long.
The ground of Lille lace is of exactly the same shape as Valenciennes, but is composed of two threads twisted loosely twice each side of the diamond, and that of Valenciennes being made of four threads plaited.
With the aid of these little charts, a remembrance of the various styles and a few actual specimens of lace, and a powerful magnifying glass, it is not beyond the power of any reader of this little book to become expert in the identification of old lace.