There exist hair and breast nets that have been safely preserved in the graves of ancient Egypt since over a thousand years before the time of Rameses the Great, who was Pharaoh in the thirteenth century B.C. There are also many plain and fancy nets of the Greek-Roman-Egyptian type known as Coptic, dating from the third to the seventh centuries A.D., as well as ancient nets made in America, some of them on the loom, with interrupted or irregular weft, which have been preserved in Peruvian graves since the time of Columbus and before. However, true lace, meaning an openwork fabric made by tatting, crochet, needlework or bobbin, twisting, knotting or braiding individual threads, to be distinguished from cutwork made by cutting or decorating a fabric after weaving, is universally acknowledged to be a European invention.
Lace effects range from plain net with regular meshes, to animal and human or conventional figures, in close texture and contrasting sometimes with net ground, sometimes with open ground that is intersected only by the slender "brides" that hold the motifs together.
The creation and development of lace is principally due to Italy, just as entirely as was the development of picture tapestries due to the French Netherlands, of Gothic architecture and stained glass windows to France, and of silk to China. The development began in the fifteenth century, as illustrated in the paintings of the period and occasionally referred to in wills and inventories, and reached its height in the sixteenth century. Venice, perhaps inspired by primitive laces and trimmings of the Roman Empire of the East, and of Sicily, led in the development of lace made with the needle, but was soon outstripped by Genoa in the production of lace made with bobbins. Another Italian city famous for bobbin lace in the sixteenth century was Milan.
The history of the English word lace follows closely the development of the fabric in Italy. Before the sixteenth century, lace meant fringes and trimmings, and cord and tape lacings. The ancient usage is still continued in the "laces" of corsets, waists and shoes.
The word is derived from the Latin laqueus, meaning loop or noose, which is also the meaning of the derivatives, the French lacs, the Italian laccio, the Spanish lazo (also meaning "bow"), and the English lassoo. Equivalent to lace of the kind that forms the subject of this article are the French dentelle, guipure, point; the German Spitzen and Kanten; the Spanish encaje; the Italian trina, merletto, punto, pizzo; and the Latin opus reticulatum et denticulatum. The French lacis means net, and the French lacet cord or braid.
The earliest of the important Italian laces were reticella, and buratto. The first was a development of drawn and cut work, but the name was retained for similar lace made with the needle without cloth foundation. The designs are geometrical and simple, and arranged in small squares.
When needle lace so completely freed itself from its reticella and cut work ancestry as to be worked in bold and irregular patterns, it began to be called air point (punto in aria), the highest type of Venetian laces.
Filet Italien starts with a coarse hand-knotted square-mesh net foundation, on which the closed parts of the pattern are darned in. Buratto is a woven substitute for the knotted net--a square-mesh net made in gauze weave with warps that twist in pairs around the wefts. Drawnwork net is made by drawing the alternate threads of scrim or etamine, and binding the intersections with the needle.
Bobbin lace like punto in aria is made on a pillow carrying the pattern that guides the worker; but instead of being made with a needle that in buttonhole stitch ties together the different outline threads, it is made with numerous bobbins that twist together or plait the threads without the limitations imposed by the loom, or by the needle. Moreover, bobbin lace is much less expensive to make than needlepoint.
The German claim to the invention of bobbin lace is not supported by the facts, although in 1934 at Annaberg, in the Hartz Mountains, a monument was erected to "Barbara Uttmann, died January 14, 1575; inventor in 1567 of bobbin-made lace which made her the benefactress of the neighborhood" Already in 1560 the author a book of bobbin-lace designs published by Froschower at Zurich had written: "From among the divers arts invented and practised for the good of humanity, we wish to mention the art of making bobbin lace which arose in our country about twenty-five years ago and quickly took root amongst us. It was imported into Germany from Italy for the first time by Venetian merchants in 1536."
Especially interesting is the comparison the same writer makes between needle and bobbin lace. He says:
"When, years ago, the method of trapunto and relief was in vogue, there is no telling how much time was taken in making a collar or bib or anything of the sort, joined to heavy expense to the person by whom it was ordered. On the contrary, now, a bobbin lace may be acquired for little money and in much less time, because the cost of production is so much reduced. Formerly, too, collars and other articles were adorned with threads of gold and coloured silk, occasioning vast expenditure and trouble in cleaning or washing with soap; now all this is reformed and trimmings are of thread capable of resisting the wear and tear of the wash tub.''
The early Venetian laces were flat, and not till about 1640 did rose points (raised points) with corded and relief effects begin to be made Those of boldest design and highest relief are called gros points de venise. About the middle of the sixteenth century Flanders began to be a lively competitor of Italy in the making of lace; and soon after, France attempted to follow suit. Henri III (1575-89) appointed a Venetian, Frederic Vinciolo, court patternmaker of linen embroideries and laces, and some of his designs were published in book form. Finally, in the last half of the seventeenth century, in the reign of Louis XIV, the importation into France of Italian and Flemish laces was forbidden, and Venetian lace workers were secured to help develop the industry at Alencon, Arras, Rheims, and other centres. These French imitations were called points de France. The Alencon designs were more fanciful, and less severe, than the Italian ones, and were widely copied by the Flemish makers. Both French and Flemish laces laid particular emphasis on fineness of thread and delicacy of texture, thus leading taste away from the standards that had made Italian laces famous and beautiful.
About the middle of the seventeenth century the Flemish guipure bobbin
laces with bride grounds began to be called points de flandres ("Flemish
lace", now called Flanders or Bruges); while the scroll patterns on
net ground were designated as points d'Angleterre. Among Flemish
cities of high reputation for individuality in bobbin lace was Mechlin,
with its hexagonal mesh and corded effects, and Brussels with an even more
elaborate hexagonal mesh and with naturalistic designs based on needlepoint
Alencon. The English Honiton is a simpler and cruder form of Brussels.
Most of the hand-made laces used in American interior decorative work come from France and Belgium, and most of the machine laces from France and England. While the laces made at Burano, a suburb of Venice, where the industry was revived about forty years ago, are worthy of the best traditions of the Italian Renaissance, they are too expensive for most modern drapery work.
The first lace machine was based on Lee's stocking machine, as modified by Strutt and Frost in 1764 to produce net. By 1769 Frost was able to make figured net, and by 1777 net with square meshes that were fast. The second lace machine is the warp frame, so called because for each warp thread there was an individual needle which looped the thread first to the right and then to the left. By 1795 this machine produced plain net and soon afterwards figured net in an almost endless variety of meshes and patterns. The third lace machine, brought to perfection by continued improvements during the past century, is the so-called Leavers machine, originated by John Heathcoat (1809) and John Leavers (1813). The application to the Leavers machine of the jacquard attachment vastly increased the range and intricacy of patterns possible, and the operation by water and later by steam and electric power vastly increased the speed and quantity produce. In the Leavers machine warp threads and bobbin threads are used, sometimes more than 9,000, making 69 pieces of lace at once, each piece requiring 100 warp and 48 bobbin threads. The warp threads are stretched perpendicularly (as on the tapestry and Oriental rug high-warp loom), just far enough apart to admit the passage between edgewise, of a twenty-five cent piece. The bobbins are so flat and thin that they pass without difficulty. Ingenious mechanism varies the tension of warp and weft threads as desirable. As the bobbins swing like pendulums through the warp threads, they are made to vacillate and twist around the warps, and the twistings are driven home by combs. If the bobbin threads are held taut and the warp threads loose, the warps will twist on the bobbin threads, and vice versa. Whilst many of the laces and nets and Nottingham lace curtains made on the Leavers and the lace curtain machines are exceedingly attractive, their imitation of real lace is far surpassed by the new Nottingham circular lace machine which produces cluny insertions and edgings that are in every way identical with those of handmade cluny.
The most important embroidery machines used to make laces are the hand-embroidery machine that multiplies automatically the work of the operator who executes the master pattern, and the schiffle or power embroidery machine that employs shuttle as well as needle and has an output many times larger than that of the hand machine. On these two machines are made the world's imitations of rose point and gros point laces, and to machine nets are added embroidery effects of the most pleasing type. The open-ground laces made on the schiffle machine are embroidered on a silk or woolen ground that is rotten away chemically after wearing, leaving the boldest possible guipure effects.
The Bonnaz machine is used principally in the making of the so-called swiss lace curtains. There are also sewing machines that produce buttonhole edging and drawnwork effects.
Most machine laces are made of cotton, thus rendering it easy to distinguish them from real laces that are usually made of linen.
       |
