Chats on Old Lace and Needlework Part 5

[Ill.u.s.tration: POINT D'ANGLETERRE.

Period of Louis XIV.

(_Author's Collection._)]

Whichever tale we choose to believe is of little consequence. It is sufficient to say that fine Point d'Angleterre is simply Brussels of the best period when the glorious Renaissance was at its height. It is absolutely indistinguishable from Brussels of the same period. The specimen lappet, ill.u.s.trated, shows the "figure" motif which appears in "Point de France" and the old "Venetian Point," and which at once dates its manufacture.

Practically the term Flanders or Flemish lace can be applied to all the laces made in Flanders and Belgium of the earliest periods. It is peculiarly fine; the specimen shown is as fine as gossamer, showing a total absence of Cordonnet, of course, and not even having the loose thread which marks the stems and leaves of Brussels and Angleterre. The flax of Flanders was at the time of the great lace industry known and imported to all the towns engaged in making it. Italy could procure nothing so fine and eminently suitable to the delicate work she made her own as this fine thread, grown in Flanders, and spun in dark, damp rooms, where only a single ray of light was allowed to enter. The thread was so fine, it is said, that it was imperceptible to the naked eye and was manipulated by touch only. The cost of this thread was 240 a pound, and one pound could be made into lace worth 720! Real Flanders lace thread even now, spun with the help of machinery, costs 70, and is nothing like so durable as the old threads. When we consider that lace to be known as "Old Lace" must be two hundred or three hundred years old, we can understand the strength of this fairy thread, which was like a spider's web in filminess and yet durable enough to last centuries of wear, and remain as a lasting memorial of its beauty.

BRUSSELS

The early Flemish laces cannot be traced to any particular town, but Brussels early obtained a reputation for the production of the soft, elegant laces which are variously known as "Real old Brussels," "Point d'Angleterre," "Point d'Aiguille," and "Point de Gaze." Almost every woman, although knowing little about lace as an art, knows and easily recognises "Brussels." It has ever been the most popular lace, partly because its price has never been actually prohibitive, although always costly. Choice pieces of Old Brussels, with real ground, rank among the laces of France and Venice as pieces of price, but the later period, especially the kind known as Brussels applique, is within everybody's reach, even if only as a border for a best handkerchief.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "OLD BRUSSELS" (HAND-MADE GROUND).

(_Author's Collection._)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRUSSELS LAPPET, MADE IN IMITATION OF ALENcON AND ARGENTAN.]

Lace made at Brussels at all periods has one characteristic that places it at once and makes identification easy at a glance. The threads of the toile--that is, the pattern--follows the _curves_, instead of, as in other Flanders laces, being straight _up_ and _down_ and _across_, each thread being exactly at right angles to the other; Brussels lace also has a distinctive edge to its pattern. It has no Cordonnet, but a little set of looped st.i.tches worked along the edge of the design, afterwards whipped over to keep the edge in place. This is most clearly seen in every specimen, and, in conjunction with the curved toile, at once settles the vexed question of the origin of Point d'Angleterre.

The mesh or ground is, again, quite different to other laces. It has three varieties of ground--

1. One, mostly used in Point d'Angleterre, being of fine "brides" with four or five picots, but this ground is also seen in Venetian and French laces.

2. A hand-made ground made of looped b.u.t.tonhole st.i.tches, which is the finest and most gossamer-like of all; and

3. A woven ground made on the pillow with plaited thread, very like Mechlin, but under the magnifying gla.s.s having two longer sides to its hexagonal mesh, and therefore being more open and clear.

The hand, or rather needlepoint, ground was three times more expensive than the woven, as it was stronger and more lasting. The special value of the "vrai reseau" in our own day is that it can be imperceptibly repaired, the broken st.i.tches replaced, whereas in the woven ground the point of junction must show.

The needle-made net is so fine that one piece in my possession, though measuring 3/4 yard by 8 inches can easily, in its widest part, be gathered and pa.s.sed through a finger ring. At the present day this net is not made, and even the fine woven ground is not used except for Royal wedding orders or for exhibition purposes. A magnificent piece belonging to Messrs. Haywards, of New Bond Street (which cannot be photographed, unfortunately, as it is between two sheets of gla.s.s, and might fall to pieces if taken out), was made for George IV., and not delivered, owing no doubt to the usual depleted state of that monarch's exchequer. Messrs. Haywards (whose courtesy is as boundless as their reputation) are always pleased to show this and their other splendid specimen collections to those interested in old lace.

Perhaps no lace is so diversified in style as Brussels. At first it was purely Flemish, and almost indistinguishable from it. Then the Venetian influence crept in, and elaboration of pattern and the Renaissance scrolls and flower work showed itself. At the Louis Quatorze period the introduction of the "fairy people," seen at its finest and best in Point de France, marks a time of special beauty. Afterwards the influence of Alencon was shown (though it never rivalled the exquisite lace of this factory), and from that time to the present day these designs have remained for use in its best work.

Some of the choicest specimens of old Brussels are shown in the now discarded "lappets," which when a lace head-piece and lappets were part of every gentlewoman's costume, were actually regulated by Sumptuary Laws as to length. The longer the lappets the higher the rank.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRUSSELS LAPPET.

Eighteenth Century.

(_S.K.M. Collection._)]

The great Napoleon, while reviving the lace-making of Alencon, specially admired fine old Brussels, and at the birth of his only son, the little "King of Rome," ordered a christening garment covered with the Napoleonic "N's," crowns and cherubs. This was sold in 1903 at Christie's for 120. At the same sale a Court train realised 140.

In the "Creevy Papers, 1768-1838," mention is made of Lord Charles Somerset complaining of not having slept all night, "not having had a minute's peace through sleeping in 'Cambrik sheets,' the Brussels lace with which the pillows were trimmed tickling his face"! This occurred at Wynyards, the seat of the Earl of Londonderry.

Queen Anne followed the extravagant fashion of wearing the costliest laces which William III. and Queen Mary carried to such an excess. In 1710 she paid 151 for 21 yards of fine Brussels edging, and two years later the account for Brussels and Mechlin laces amounted to 1,418.

In the succeeding reign the ladies of George I.'s period wore lappets and flounces, caps, tuckers, ap.r.o.ns, stomachers, and handkerchiefs, all made of Brussels.

In the time of George II. lace was even more worn, but English lace began to rival Brussels, not in quality, but as a subst.i.tute.

George III. and his wife, Queen Charlotte, were economists of the first order, and personal decoration was rigidly tabooed; hence the almost total extinction of lace as an article of apparel, while in George IV.'s time dress had evolved itself into shimmery silks and lawns, lace being merely a tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, and the enormous head-dress decorated more frequently with a band of ribbon.

An exquisite portrait of Louis Philippe's Queen, Marie Amelia, by the early Victorian painter Winterhalter (whose paintings are again by the revival of fashion coming into favour) shows this fine old _grande dame_ in black velvet dress covered with three graduated flounces of Brussels lace, cap and lappets and "tucker" of the same lace, lace fan, and, sad to relate, a scarf of English machine-made net, worked with English run embroidery!

Although good Queen Adelaide had a pretty fancy for lace, she wore little of it, and it was left to Queen Victoria to revive the glory of wearing Brussels to any extent; and she, alas! was sufficiently patriotic to encourage home-made products by wearing almost exclusively Honiton, which I personally am not good Englishwoman enough to admire except at its latest stage (just the past few years), when lace-making, as almost every other art work in this country, is emerging from what, from an artistic point of view, has been one long Slough of Despond.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COMTESSE D'ARTOIS, WIFE OF ONE OF LOUIS XIV.'S GRANDSONS, WEARING FINE BRUSSELS LACE.]

VIII

THE MODERN BRUSSELS LACES AND MECHLIN

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN OLD PRINT OF "MARIE ANTOINETTE," SHOWING THE SIMPLICITY OF ADORNMENT SHE AFFECTED.

"MECHLIN" LACE.]

VIII

THE MODERN BRUSSELS LACES AND MECHLIN

Modern Brussels, Point Gaze--Ghent--d.u.c.h.esse Point--Mechlin (the Queen of Laces).

Magnificent laces are still made at Brussels, but almost wholly on a machine-made ground, the workers and merchants apparently finding the old hand-made ground unprofitable. The machine-made ground is cheap, and often of mixed flax and cotton instead of being of purely Flanders flax thread, as in the old days. Both quality and colour suffer from this admixture, the lace washing badly and wearing worse.

The most common lace is the Point Applique, in which the sprays, groups, and borders on the design are made separately by hand on the pillow, and are afterwards applied by tiny st.i.tchings to the machine-made net. Some qualities are better than others. In the better cla.s.s the sprays are appliqued to the net, which is then cut away and the interstices of the design filled in with hand-made modes and brides, making a very pretty and showy lace. The best lace made in Brussels now is

_Point Gaze_,

in which the finest modern lace is produced. Its chief characteristics are its superb designs, repeating many of the fine Renaissance patterns, its clear ground, and its use of shading in leaves and flowers, which, while it adds much to the sumptuous effect, is possibly too naturalistic. This lace is a mixture of hand and machine lace, the ground being of the best machine net, the flowers and sprays frequently needle made, the various fillings being composed of a variety of designs, and the shading often being produced in the needle-darning as in modern Ghent and Limerick. Point de Gaze is costly, but it has the reputation of appearing "worth its money" to which few other laces of the present day can aspire.

Other lace-making towns in Belgium and Flanders are--

_Ghent_,

which produces a fine machine-made net, worked and embroidered in exact imitation of the earliest Limerick lace. So _real_ is this imitation that a fine flounce of 4 yds. 32 in. wide was sold at a London auction-room a few months ago, as "real old Limerick," for 60!