184 LACE
which directly developed into point lace. The methods of producing them were various. A common way was to fasten on a light frame a reticulation of threads, under which was fastened, by gum or otherwise, a piece of fine lawn. Then along these threads the pattern to be formed was stitched to the lawn background in button-hole stitching, and the superfluous parts of the lawn were afterwards drawn or cut away, – whence the names "punto a reticella" and "punto tagliato." In other cases no cloth at all was used, and the pattern, consisting of an interlacing framework of threads, was simply sewed over with button-hole stitches. This was "punto in aria." The early geometrical patterns of the "punto a reticella" or "punto tagliato" and "punto in aria" were probably derived from the Ionian Islands and Greece, and the cut-work itself was indeed also known as Greek lace. The close connexion of the proud and powerful Venetian republic with Greece and the eastern islands, and its commercial relations with the East, sufficiently explain the early transplanting of these arts into Venice. Once fairly established, they quickly grew in beauty and variety of pattern, complexity of stitch, and delicacy of execution, until Venetian lace attained an artistic grace and perfection which baffle all description. The making of the principal and most important variety of Venetian needlepoint lace, the "punto in aria," began to be practised in the middle of the 16th century.[1]
It is a noteworthy circumstance that the two widely distant regions of Europe where pictorial art first nourished and attained a high perfection, North Italy and Flanders, were precisely the localities where lace-making first took root, and became an industry of importance both from an artistic and from a commercial point of view. The invention of pillow lace is generally credited to the Flemings; but there is no distinct trace of the time or the locality. In a picture said to exist in the church of St Gammar at Lierre, and sometimes attributed to Quentin Matsys (1495), is introduced a girl working lace with pillow, bobbins, &c., which are somewhat similar to the implements in use in more recent times.[2] From the very infancy of Flemish art an active intercourse was maintained between the Low Countries and the great centres of Italian art; and it is therefore only what might be expected that the wonderful examples of the art and handiwork of Venice in lace-making should soon have come to be known to and rivalled among the equally industrious, thriving, and artistic Flemings. And so we find that, at the end of the 16th century, lacis and needlepoint lace were also known and made in Flanders, and pattern-books were issued having the same general character as those published for the instruction of the Venetians and other Italians. In Italy, under the name of "merletti a piombini," the art of twisting and plaiting threads by means of bobbins or fuxii was early practised; and in later times fins scrolls in great widths for altar frontals were made in Italy on the pillow.
France and England were not far behind Venice and Flanders in adopting lace. Henry III. of France (1574-1589) appointed a Venetian, Frederic Vinciolo, to be pattern maker for varieties of linen needle works and laces to his court. Through the influence of this fertile designer the seeds of a taste for lace in France were principally sown. But the event which par excellence would seem to have fostered the art of lace making there was the aid and patronage officially given it in the following century by Louis XIV., acting on the advice of his minister Colbert. Intrigue and diplomacy were put into action to secure the services of Venetian lace-workers; and by an edict dated 1665 lace-making centres were founded at Alencon, Quesnoy, Arras, Rheims, Sedan, Chateau Thierry, Loudun, and elsewhere. The state made a contribution of 36,000 francs in aid of a company to carry out the organization of these establishments; and at the same time the importation of Venetian, Flemish, and other laces was strictly forbidden.[3] The edict contained instructions that the lace-makers should produce all sorts of thread work, such as those dons on a pillow or cushion and with the needle, in the style of the laces made at Venice, Genoa, Ragusa, and other places; these French imitations were to be called "points de France." By 1671 the Italian ambassador at Paris writes, "Gallantly is the minister Colbert on his way to bring the 'lavori d'aria' to perfection." Six years later an Italian, Domenigo Contarini, alludes to the "punto in aria," "which the French can now do to admiration." The styles of design which emanated from the chief of the French lace centres, Alençon, were more fanciful and floral than the Venetian, and it is quite evident that the Flemish lace-makers adopted many of these French patterns for their own use. The importance of the French designs, which owe so much to the state patronage they enjoyed, was noticed early in the 18th century by Bishop Berkeley. "How," he asks, "could France and Flanders have drawn so much money from other countries for figured silk, lace, and tapestry, if they had not had their academies of design?"
The humble endeavours of peasantry in England (which could boast of no schools of design), Germany, Sweden, Russia, and Spain could not result in work of high artistic pretension. Lace making is said to have been promoted in Russia through the patronage of the court there, after the visit of Peter the Great to Paris in the early days of the 18th century. In Germany, Barbara Uttmann, a native of Nuremberg, instructed peasants of the Harz mountains to twist and plait threads in 1561. She was assisted in this by certain refugees from Flanders. A sort of "purling" or imitation of the Italian "merletti a piombini" was the style of work produced here. It did not develop in any important way, nor have German laces acquired great artistic reputation. Spain has been considered to have been a lace-making country, and no doubt a good deal of lace, having, however, no distinctive character, was made in Spanish conventual establishments. The "point d'Espagne," however, appears to have been a commercial name given by French manufacturers of a class of lace greatly esteemed by Spaniards in the 17th century. No lace pattern books have been found to have been published in Spain. The point laces which came out of Spanish monasteries in 1830, when these institutions were dissolved, were not distinguishable from similar Venetian needle-made laces. The lace vestments preserved at the cathedral at Granada hitherto presumed to
- ↑ The prevalence of fashion in the above-mentioned sorts of embroidery during the 16th century is marked by the number of pattern-books then published. In Venice an early work of this class was issued by Alessandro Pagannino in 1527; another of a similar nature, printed by Pierre Quinty, appeared in the same year at Cologne; and La fleur de la science de pourtraicture et patrons de broderie, façon arabicque et ytalique, was published at Paris in 1530. From these early dates until the beginning of the 17th century pattern-books for embroidery in Italy, France, Germany, and England were produced and published in great abundance. The designs contained in many of those dating from the early 16th century were to be worked for costumes and hangings, and consisted of scrolls, arabesques, birds, animals, flowers, foliage, herbs, and grasses. So far, however, as their reproduction as laces might be concerned, the execution of complicated work was involved which none but practised lace-workers, such as those who arose a century later, could be expected to overcome.
- ↑ The picture, however, as Seguin has pointed out, was probably painted some thirty years later, and by Jean Matsys.
- ↑ See the poetical skit Revolte des Passements et Broderies, written by Mademoselle de la Tousse, cousin of Madame de Sévigné, in the middle of the 17th century, which marks the favour which foreign laces at that time commanded amongst the leaders of French fashion. It is fairly evident too that the French laces themselves, known as "bisette," "gueuse," "campane," and "mignonette," were small and comparatively insignificant works, without pretence to design.
