[Illustration: Imitation Marquise.]
[Illustration: Real Point d'Angleterre.]
{34}
CARNIVAL.--A variety of reticella lace made in Italy, Spain and France
during the sixteenth century.
CARTISANE.--Guipure or passement, made with cartisane, which is vellum or
parchment in thin strips or small rolls, covered with silk, gold thread or
similar material.
CHAIN.--A lace of the seventeenth century, consisting of a braid or
passement so worked as to resemble chain links. It was made of colored
silk, and also of gold and silver thread.
CHANTILLY.--One of the blonde laces, of the sort recognizable by their
Alencon reseau ground and the flowers in light or openwork instead of
solid. It is made both in white and black silk. Black Chantilly lace has
always been made of silk, but a grenadine, not a lustrous silk. The pattern
is outlined with a cordonnet of a flat, untwisted silk strand. During the
seventeenth century the Duchesse of Longueville established the manufacture
of silk lace at Chantilly and its neighborhood, and as Paris was near and
the demand of royalty for this lace increased it became very popular. At
the time of the Revolution the prosperity of the industry was ruined, and
many of the lacemakers were sent to the guillotine. During the ascendancy
of the first Napoleon, the manufacture of Chantilly again became
flourishing. Since then the industry has been driven away from that town on
account of the higher labor costs resulting from the nearness of Chantilly
to Paris, and the lacemakers, unable to meet this increased cost, retired
to Gisors, where half a century ago there were between 8,000 and 10,000
lacemakers. The supremacy of lacemaking formerly enjoyed by Chantilly has
now been transferred to Calvados, Caen, Bayeux and Grammont. The
widely-known Chantilly shawls are made at Bayeux, and also at Grammont.
CHENILLE.--A French lace, made in the eighteenth century, so called because
the patterns were outlined with fine white chenille. The ground {35} was
made of silk in honeycomb reseau, and the patterns were geometrical and
filled with thick stitches.
CLUNY.--A kind of net lace with a square net background in which the stitch
is darned. It is so called from the famous museum of antiquities in the
Hotel Cluny, at Paris, and also because the lace was supposed to have a
medieval appearance. The patterns used are generally of an antique and
quaint description, mostly of birds, animals and flowers, and in the
existing manufacture the old traditions are fairly well preserved.
Sometimes a glazed thread is introduced in the pattern as an outline. Cluny
is a plaited lace, somewhat similar to the Genoese and Maltese laces, and
is made in silk, linen or cotton.
CORDOVER.--A kind of filling used in the pattern of ancient and modern
point lace.
CORK.--A name formerly used for Irish lace in general, when the manufacture
of Irish lace was principally confined to the neighborhood of Cork.
CRAPONNE.--A kind of stout thread guipure lace, of cheap price and inferior
make, used for furniture.
CRETAN.--A name given to an old lace, ordinarily made of colored material,
whether silk or linen, and sometimes embroidered with the needle after the
lace was complete.
CREWEL.--A kind of edging made of crewel or worsted thread, intended as a
border or binding for garments.
CROCHET.--Lace which is made with a crochet hook, or whose pattern is so
made and then appliqued on a bobbin or machine-made net. It is similar to
needle-point lace, although not equal in fineness to the best examples of
the latter.
CROWN.--A lace whose pattern was worked on a succession of crowns,
sometimes intermixed with acorns and roses. It was made first in the reign
of Queen Elizabeth. A relic of this lace may still be found {36} in the
"faux galon," sold for the decoration of fancy dresses and theatrical
purposes.
DALECARLIAN.--Lace made for their own use by the peasants of Dalecarlia, a
province of Sweden. Its patterns are ancient and traditional. It is a
coarse guipure lace, made of unbleached thread.
DAMASCENE.--An imitation of Honiton lace, made by joining lace sprigs and
lace braid with corded bars. It differs from modern point lace in that it
has real Honiton sprigs, and is without needlework fillings.
DARNED LACE.--A general name for lace upon a net ground, upon which the
pattern is appliqued in needlework. The different laces of this kind are
described under Filet Brode, Guipure d'Art and Spiderwork.
DEVONSHIRE.--Lace made in Devonshire, England, and more frequently
designated as Honiton. (See Honiton.) Formerly practically the whole female
population of Devonshire were employed in lacemaking, and during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Belgian, French and Spanish laces were
imitated in that country most successfully, as were also Venetian and
Spanish needle-point, Maltese, Greek and Genoese laces. During the last
century this variety in lacemaking has died out in Devonshire, and now only
Honiton is made.
DIAMOND.--A lace made with a stitch either worked as open or close
diamonds, and used in modern point and in ancient needle-points.
DIEPPE.--A fine point lace made at Dieppe, in France, resembling
Valenciennes, and made with three threads instead of four. There were
several kinds of lace made at Dieppe in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, including Brussels, Mechlin, Point de Paris and Valenciennes,
but the true Dieppe point was eventually restricted to two kinds, the
narrow being called the Ave Maria and Poussin, the wider and double
grounded, the Dentelle a la Vierge. Dieppe and Havre were formerly the two
great lace centers of Normandy, manufacturing in those cities having
antedated that at Alencon, but the prosperity of the lace industry in both
these cities was nearly destroyed at the Revolution, and though for a time
encouraged under the restored Bourbons, and patronized by Napoleon III,
machine-made laces have practically driven the old Dieppe point out of the
market. {37}
[Illustration: Real Torchon.]
[Illustration: Imitation Valenciennes.]
{38}
DRESDEN POINT.--A fine drawn lace, embroidered with the needle and made in
Dresden during the latter part of the seventeenth and the whole of the
eighteenth century. It was an imitation of an Italian point lace, in which
a piece of linen was converted into lace by some of its threads being drawn
away, some retained to form a pattern, and others worked together to form
square meshes. The manufacture of Dresden point declined, and now laces of
many kinds are made there, notably an imitation of old Brussels.
DUCHESSE.--A fine pillow lace, a variety originally made in Belgium
resembling Honiton guipure lace in design and workmanship, but worked with
a finer thread and containing a greater amount of raised or relief work.
The leaves, flowers and sprays formed are larger and of bolder design. The
stitches and manner of working in Honiton and Duchesse are alike.
DUNKIRK.--A pillow lace made with a flat thread, and whose manufacture was
carried on in the districts around Dunkirk, a French seaport, in the
seventeenth century. The best known kind was an imitation of Mechlin lace.
DUTCH.--A coarse, strong lace, made with a thick ground, and of plain and
heavy design. It is a kind of cheap Valenciennes. Dutch lace is inferior in
design and workmanship to those of France and Belgium.
ENGLISH POINT.--(a) A fine pillow lace made in the eighteenth century,
generally considered to be of Flemish origin and manufacture, {39} and
mistakenly called "Point d'Angleterre," as it was neither point lace nor
made in England. Some writers, however, assert its English origin. Owing to
the protection formerly given by law to English laces, large quantities of
Belgium laces are believed to have been smuggled into England under the
name of "Point d'Angleterre," so as to evade the customs duties. (b) At the
present day the finest quality of Brussels lace, in which needle-point
sprigs are applied to Brussels bobbin-ground. (See Application lace, also
Point d'Angleterre.)
ESCURIAL.--A modern silk lace, made in imitation of Rose point. The
patterns are outlined with a lustrous thread or cord.
FAYAL.--A delicately made and costly lace, hand-made by the women of the
Island of Fayal, one of the Azores, off the western Spanish coast. The
thread used in making this lace is spun from the fiber of the leaves of the
aloe, a plant resembling somewhat the century plant. Great skill is
necessary in the manufacture, which is restricted to a comparatively few
women of the island, who have been trained to this work from childhood. The
lace is marketed in France, chiefly in Paris, at a very high price, and it
is very difficult for outside purchasers to buy it at any cost. The
patterns are extremely elegant and original in design. Notwithstanding the
delicacy of this fabric, it is remarkably durable.
FEDORA.--See Point Applique.
FALSE VALENCIENNES.--(a) Lace resembling Valenciennes in surface and in
pattern, but without the true Valenciennes net ground, (b) A term for
Valenciennes lace made in Belgium.
FLAT POINT.--Lace made without any raised-work or work in relief from
raised points.
FLEMISH POINT.--A needle-point guipure lace made in Flanders.
FOOTING.--A narrow lace which is used to keep the stitches of the {40}
ground firm and to sew the lace to the garment upon which it is to be worn.
Sometimes the footing is worked with the rest of the design. It is used
also in making lace handkerchiefs and for quilling effects.
GENOA.--A name originally given to the gold and silver laces for which
Genoa was famed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but now applied
to lace made from the fiber of the aloe plant, and also to Macrame lace.
GOLD.--Lace made of warp threads or cords of silk, or silk and cotton
combined, with thin gold or silver gilt bands passing around it. It was
anciently made of gold or silver gilt wire. It is now used chiefly to
decorate uniforms, liveries and some church costumes, and occasionally for
millinery. The metal is drawn through a wire, and, after being flattened
between steel rollers, several strands of the flattened wire are passed
around the silk simultaneously by means of a complex machine having a wheel
and iron bobbins. The history of gold lace is interesting, as illustrating
the oldest form of the lacemaker's art. From the days of Egypt and Rome
down to medieval Venice, Italy and Spain, gold and silver gilt wire were
used in making this kind of lace. The Jews in Spain were accomplished
workers in this art, and in Sweden and Russia gold lace was the first lace
made. In France gold lacemaking was a prosperous manufacture at Aurrillac
and Arras, at which latter place it flourished up to the end of the
eighteenth century. Gold lace was imported into England at an early date,
and King James I established a monopoly in it. Its importation was
prohibited by Queen Anne, on account of the extravagant uses of
ornamentation to which it was put, and it was also prohibited in the reign
of George II, to correct the prevalent taste for the foreign manufactured
lace. The attempt was unsuccessful, for we are told that smuggling greatly
increased. It became a "war to the knife between the revenue officer and
society at large, all classes combined, town ladies of high degree, with
waiting-maids, and the common sailor, to avoid the obnoxious duties and
cheat the government." {41}
[Illustration: Real Mechlin.]
[Illustration: Real Point de Paris.]
{42}
GRAMMONT.--Grammont lace, so called from the town of Grammont, in Belgium,
where it was originally manufactured, is of two kinds: (a) A cheap, white
pillow lace. (b) A black silk lace, resembling the Chantilly blondes. These
laces are made for flounces and shawls, and were used both in America and
Europe. As compared with Chantilly, the ground is coarser and the patterns
are not so clear-cut and elegant as the real Chantilly.
GUEUSE.--A thread pillow lace made in France during the eighteenth century.
The ground of this lace was reseau, and the toile was worked with a thicker
thread than the ground. It was formerly an article of extensive consumption
in France, but, after the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was
little used, except by the poorer classes. It was formerly called "Beggars'
lace."
GUIPURE.--It was originally a kind of lace or passement made of cartisane
and twisted silk. The name was afterward applied to heavy lace made with
thin wires whipped around the silk, and with cotton thread. The word
guipure is no longer commonly used to denote such work as this, but has
become a term of variable designation, and it is so extensively applied
that it is difficult to give a limit to its meaning. It may be used to
define a lace where the flowers are either joined by brides, or large
coarse stitches, or lace that has no ground. The modern Honiton and Maltese
are guipures, and so is Venetian point. But as the word has also been
applied to large, flowing pattern laces, worked with coarse net grounds, it
is impossible to lay down any hard and fast rule about it.
HENRIQUES.--A fine stitch or point, used both in early and modern
needle-point work.
{43}
[Illustration: Real Arabian.]
[Illustration: Machine Irish Crochet.]
{44} HOLLIE POINT.--A needle-point lace said to have been originally called
holy point, on account of its uses. It was popular in the middle ages for
church decoration, but was adapted to different purposes in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, and various makes of lace have since been called
by this name.
HONITON.--A pillow lace originally made at Honiton, Devonshire, England,
and celebrated for the beauty of its figures and sprigs. The manufacture is
still carried on at that town, where there is a lace school, but a similar
lace is made in the leading Continental centers of the industry.
(a) Honiton Application is made by working the pattern parts on the lace
pillow and securing them to a net ground, separately made. At present it is
customary to use machine-made net upon which hand-made sprays are sewn.
(b) Honiton guipure, which in common acceptation passes as Honiton lace, is
distinguished by its large flower patterns upon a very open ground, the
sprays being united by brides or bars.
Honiton braid is a narrow, machine-made fabric, the variety in most general
use being composed of a series of oval-shaped figures united by narrow
bars. It is of different widths, in linen, cotton and silk, and is much
used in the manufacture of handkerchiefs, collars, and some varieties of
lace.
The history of Honiton lace is more than ordinarily interesting, partly by
reason of the doubt as to whether it really was a lace of English
invention, or brought by the Flemish workmen to England. Some writers
assert the former, but the stronger probability is that the art was brought
from Flanders by Protestant immigrants, who fled from persecution.
Whichever theory is held, the development of the industry at Honiton, and
its close resemblance to other lacemaking processes in Belgium, Holland and
France, afford an excellent illustration of the interdependence of
lacemakers in all countries upon each {45} other as regards improvements
resulting from new ideas. Honiton, if it was brought from Flanders
originally, afterward repaid the debt by the beauty and celebrity of its
designs, which served as examples for Continental lacemakers. The very
attempt to protect its manufacture in England, by imposing prohibitive
duties, only increased the desire to receive foreign suggestions, and to
smuggle foreign laces into England, while the ingenuity of Continental
manufacturers succeeded in copying the best Honiton designs, and even in
improving upon them. The English lacemakers at Honiton were, however, at
first unsuccessful in their attempts to rival the best laces of the
Continent, especially Brussels. Although they had royal patronage, and the
whims and lavish expenditure of the court of Charles II were at their
service, together with protective duties, it was not until the reign of
George II and George III that English lace substantially improved. This
resulted from substituting the working of the true Brussels net ground, or
vrai reseau, for the old guipure bar ground. The patterns were also formed
of detached flower sprays, and soon the Honiton product became almost
unrivaled. This superiority continued until about 1820, when machine-made
net was introduced, and the old exquisite net ground, made of the finest
Antwerp thread, went out of fashion by reason of the commercial demand for
an inferior product. Honiton guipure is now the chief form of lace made at
that town. As regards composition of the patterns of Honiton laces, as well
as finish and delicacy of execution, much improvement has been manifested
during the last twenty years by reason of better schools for design, and
the rivalry promoted by international exhibitions.
IMITATION.--Machine-made lace of any kind. It often rivals real lace in
fineness, but necessarily its mechanical regularity of pattern detracts
somewhat from the artistic character of the result. Constant improvement in
processes, however, has in some laces made the {46} resemblance to the
hand-made product so close that even experts can hardly recognize the
difference. If it were asked how the imitation lace can be distinguished
from needle-point, the answer is that it is not made with looped stitches
like the latter, nor has it the effect of plaited threads, as in pillow
lace. Again, the toile of machine-made lace is often found to be ribbed,
and this lace is very generally made of cotton instead of the linen thread
with which old needle-point and pillow lace is made. In the invention of
substitutes for hand-made lace stitches Switzerland has been the leader,
and by 1868 hundreds of machines, perfected from the invention of a native
of St. Gall, were turning out a close imitation of the hand-made work. The
most recent triumphs of this description are the imitations of Venetian
point, in which a nearer approximation than ever before has been made to
the needle-worked toile, and also of the bride work. But, notwithstanding
the marvelous results attained in machine-made lace, they are the triumphs
of mechanism which cannot displace the superiority, and charm, and rarity,
of the finest hand-made work. In the latter the personal equation, the
skill and the loving, workmanlike fidelity of the individual toiler to his
task impart a quality which dead mechanism can neither create nor
supersede. Machine-made lace may be predominantly the lace of commerce, but
hand-made lace is the natural expression and embodiment of a delicate and
difficult art, and thus it will ever remain.
INSERTION.--A kind of lace, embroidery or other trimming used to insert in
a plain fabric for ornamental purposes. It is made with the edges on both
sides alike, and often a plain portion of the material outside the work, so
that it may be sewn on one side to the garment for which it is intended and
to the plain part of the lace or border on the other.
{47}
[Illustration: Imitation Point d'Alencon.]
{48} IRISH.--A term denoting a variety of laces made in Ireland, of which
the two most individual and best-known kinds are the net embroideries of
Limerick and the applique and cut cambric work of Carrick-ma-cross. Other
varieties, which are imitations of foreign laces, are Irish point,
resembling Brussels lace; black and white Maltese; silver, black and white
blondes. The Limerick embroideries, for they cannot be strictly called
lace, are an imitation of Indian tambour work, and consist of fine
embroidery in chain-stitches upon a Nottingham net. Carrick-ma-cross, or
Irish guipure, is a kind of so-called Irish point lace, made at the town of
that name, but which is really nothing more than a species of embroidery,
from which part of the cloth is cut away, leaving a guipure ground. It is
not a very durable lace. The most popular patterns are the rose and the
shamrock. Irish crochet is an imitation of the needle-point laces of Spain
and Venice; that is to say, it resembles these laces in general effect.
There is also a needle-point lace made of rather coarse thread, and used
exclusively in Ireland and England. The manufacture of laces in Ireland is
carried on by the cottagers, by the nuns in the convents, and in several
industrial schools founded for that purpose. It has only become a popular
industry within the last twenty-five years, as the costumes of the people
in earlier times did not require lace ornamentation, and there was a
widespread and deep-rooted aversion to the adoption of English fashions in
clothing so long as certain sumptuary laws were unrepealed.
Afterward, under slightly more liberal conditions, English fashions were
gradually adopted, and with them came the demand for a cheap Irish lace, as
the foreign laces were too expensive. Not until 1743 was there any official
attempt to encourage the industry, but in that year the Royal Dublin
Society established prizes for excellence in lacemaking. This attempt
lasted until 1774. In 1829 a school was opened in Limerick for instruction
in the now celebrated lace or embroidery first made in that town; but in
the famine years of 1846-48 more effectual measures were taken to spread a
knowledge of the art, and several schools {49} were opened in different
parts of the country. The Irish have never made a lace that can in any
sense be called national, but great skill has been developed in the
imitations of the foreign fabrics, and the Irish name has been so closely
associated with some of them that they are popularly considered a native
Irish product. The exhibition of Irish laces at the Mansion House in London
in 1883 added materially to the reputation of these fabrics.
IRISH TRIMMING.--A plain-patterned, woven lace, formerly used in
ornamenting muslin underwear, pillow slips and the like.
JESUIT.--A modern needle-point lace, made in Ireland, and so called on
account of the tradition as to the introduction of its manufacture after
the famine of 1846.
KNOTTED.--A term applied to the old Punto a Groppo, of Italian manufacture
originally, and consisting of a fringe or border made of knotted threads.
It is commonly called Knotting in all English-speaking countries. The
modern Macrame is made like the knotted laces.
LILLE.--A lace made at Lille, in France, noted for its clear and light
single reseau ground, which is sometimes ornamented with points d'esprit.
It is a lace of simple design, consisting of a thick run thread, enclosing
cloth-stitch for thick parts, and plaitings for open parts. The old Lille
lace is always made with a stiff and formal pattern, with a thick, straight
edge, and with a square instead of the usual round dots worked over the
ground. Lille was distinguished as a lacemaking city as far back as 1582,
and from that year until 1848 the industry was successful, but since the
latter year there has been a steady decline, as more remunerative
occupations have gradually drawn away the younger workers from lacemaking.
The Lille pattern was similar to that of the laces made at Arras and
Mirecourt, in France, and in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, in England,
but none of the latter could rival the famous single reseau ground. {50}