esteemed for their solidity. The finest productions were for men's ruffles,
which they fabricated of exquisite beauty.
A considerable quantity of blonde was made at Meran, a village in the
neighbourhood of Beauvoisin, but the commerce had fallen off at the end of
the last century. These blondes go by the familiar name of "bisettes."
ORLÉANOIS.
Colbert's attempts at establishing a manufactory of point de France at
Montargis appear by his letters to have been unsuccessful.
BERRY.
Nor were the reports from Bourges more encouraging.
POITOU.
Lace was made at Loudun, one of Colbert's foundations, in the seventeenth
century, but the fabric has always been common. "Mignonettes et dentelles à
poignet de chemises, et de prix de toutes espèces," from one sol six
deniers the ell, to forty sols the piece of twelve ells.
Children began lace-making at a very early age. "Loudun fournit quelques
dentelles communes," says the Government Reporter of 1803.[686]
[Illustration: Fig. 112.
POINT DE BOURGOGNE.--Bobbin-made.
_To face page 256._]
{257}Peuchet speaks of lace manufactories at Perpignan, Aix, Cahors,
Bordeaux,[687] etc., but they do not appear to have been of any importance,
and no longer exist.[688]
{258}CHAPTER XX.
HOLLAND, GERMANY, SWITZERLAND, AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY.
----
HOLLAND.
"A country that draws fifty feet of water,
In which men live as in the hold of nature,
And when the sea does in them break,
And drowns a province, does but spring a leak."--_Hudibras._
We know little of the early fabrics of this country. The laces of Holland,
though made to a great extent, were overshadowed by the richer products of
their Flemish neighbours. "The Netherlanders," writes Fynes Moryson, who
visited Holland in 1589, "wear very little lace,[689] and no embroidery.
Their gowns are mostly black, without lace or gards, and their neck-ruffs
of very fine linen."
We read how, in 1667, France had become the rival of Holland in the trade
with Spain, Portugal and Italy; but she laid such high duties on foreign
merchandise, the Dutch themselves set up manufactures of lace and other
articles, and found a market for their produce even in France.[690] A few
years later, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes[691] caused 4,000
lace-makers to leave the town of Alençon alone. Many took refuge in
Holland, where, says a writer of the day, "they were treated like artists."
Holland gained more than she lost by Louis XIV. The French refugees founded
a manufactory of that point lace called "dentelle a la Reine"[692] in the
Orphan House at Amsterdam.[693]
PLATE LXVI.
[Illustration: WILLIAM, PRINCE OF ORANGE, FATHER OF WILLIAM III.,
1627-1650. School of Van Dyck.
The collar is edged with Dutch lace. National Portrait Gallery.
Photo by Walker and Cockerell.]
_To face page 258._
{259}A few years later, another Huguenot, Zacharie Châtelain,[694]
introduced into Holland the industry, at that time so important, of making
gold and silver lace.
The Dutch possessed one advantage over most other nations, especially over
England, in her far-famed Haarlem[695] thread, once considered the best
adapted for lace in the world. "No place bleaches flax," says a writer of
the day,[696] "like the meer of Haarlem."[697]
Still the points of Holland made little noise in the world. The Dutch
strenuously forbade the entry of all foreign lace, and what they did not
consume themselves they exported to Italy, where the market was often
deficient.[698] Once alone in England we hear tell of a considerable parcel
of Dutch lace seized between Deptford and London from the Rotterdam hoy.
England, however, according to Anderson, in 1764, received in return for
her products from Holland "fine lace, but the balance was in England's
favour."
In 1770 the Empress Queen (Marie Theresa) published a declaration
prohibiting the importation of Dutch lace into any of her Imperial
Majesty's hereditary dominions in Germany.[699]
As in other matters, the Dutch carried their love of lace {260}to the
extreme, tying up their knockers with rich point to announce the birth of
an infant. A traveller who visited France in 1691, remarks of his hotel:
"The warming-pans and brasses were not here muffled up in point and
cut-work, after the manner of Holland, for there were no such things to be
seen."[700]
The Dutch lace most in use was thick, strong and serviceable (Fig. 113).
That which has come under our notice resembles the fine close Valenciennes,
having a pattern often of flowers or fruit strictly copied from nature.
"The ladies wear," remarks Mrs. Calderwood, "very good lace mobs." The
shirt worn by William the Silent when he fell by the assassin is still
preserved at The Hague; it is trimmed with a lace of thick linen stitches,
drawn and worked over in a style familiar to those acquainted with the
earlier Dutch pictures.
SAXONY.
"Here unregarded lies the rich brocade,
There Dresden lace in scatter'd heaps is laid;
Here the gilt china vase bestrews the floor,
While chidden Betty weeps without the door."
--"Eclogue on the death of Shock, a pet lapdog."
_Ladies' Magazine._ 1750.
"His olive-tann'd complexion graces
With little dabs of Dresden laces;
While for the body Mounseer Puff
Would think e'en dowlas fine enough."
--_French Barber._ 1756.
[Illustration: Fig. 113.
DUTCH BOBBIN-LACE.--Eighteenth century.
_To face page 260._]
{261}[Illustration: Fig. 114.
TOMB OF BARBARA UTTMANN, AT ANNABERG.]
The honour of introducing pillow lace into Germany is accorded by tradition
to Barbara Uttman. She was born in 1514, in the small town of Etterlein,
which derives its name from her family. Her parents, burghers of Nuremburg,
had removed to the Saxon Hartz Mountains, for the purpose of working some
mines. Barbara Etterlein here married a rich master miner named Christopher
Uttmann, of Annaberg. It is said that she learned lace-making from a native
of Brabant, a Protestant, whom the cruelties of the Spaniards had driven
from her country. Barbara had observed the mountain girls occupied in
making a network for the miners to wear over their hair: she took great
interest in the work, and, profiting by the experience derived from her
Brabant teacher, succeeded in making her pupils produce first a fine
knotted tricot, afterwards a kind of plain lace ground. In 1561, having
procured aid from Flanders, she set up, in her own name of Barbara Uttmann,
a workshop at Annaberg, and there began to make laces of various patterns.
This branch of industry soon spread from the Bavarian frontier to Altenberg
and Geissing, giving employment to 30,000 persons, and producing a revenue
of 1,000,000 thalers. Barbara Uttmann died in 1575, leaving sixty-five
children and grandchildren, thus realising a prophecy made previous to her
marriage, that her descendants would equal in number the stitches of the
first lace ground she had made: such prophecies were common in those days.
She sleeps in the churchyard of Annaberg, near the old lime-tree. On her
tomb (Fig. 114) is inscribed: "Here lies Barbara Uttmann, died 14 January,
1575, whose invention {262}of lace in the year 1561 made her the
benefactress of the Erzgebirge."
"An active mind, a skilful hand,
Bring blessings down on the Fatherland."
In the Green Vault at Dresden is preserved an ivory statuette of Barbara
Uttmann, four and a half inches high, beautifully executed by Koehler, a
jeweller of Dresden, who worked at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
It is richly ornamented with enamels and precious stones, such figures (of
which there are many in the Green Vault) being favourite articles for
birthday and Christmas gifts.
Previous to the eighteenth century the nets of Germany had already found a
market in Paris.[701] "On vend," says the _Livre Commode des Adresses_ of
1692, "le treillis d'Allemagne en plusieurs boutiques de la rue Béthizy."
"Dresden," says Anderson, "makes very fine lace," the truth of which is
confirmed by nearly every traveller of the eighteenth century. We have
reason to believe the so-called Dresden lace was the drawn-work described
in Chapter II., and which was carried to great perfection.
"Went to a shop at Spaw," writes Mrs. Calderwood, "and bought a pair of
double Dresden ruffles, which are just like a sheaf, but not so open as
yours, for two pounds two."
"La broderie de Dresde est très connue et les ouvriers très habiles," says
Savary.
This drawn-work, for such it was, excited the emulation of other nations.
The Anti-Gallican Society in 1753 leads the van, and awards three guineas
as their second prize for ruffles of Saxony.[702]
[Illustration: Fig. 114A.
BARBARA UTTMANN, WHO INTRODUCED THE LACE MANUFACTURE INTO THE ERZGEBIRGE.
From an ivory statuette by Koehler, Green Vault, Dresden.
_To face page 262._]
{263}Ireland, in 1755, gave a premium of £5 for the best imitation of
"Dresden point," while the Edinburgh Society, following in the wake, a year
later presents to Miss Jenny Dalrymple a gold medal for "the best imitation
of Dresden work in a pair of ruffles."
In the _Fool of Quality_,[703] and other works from 1760 to 1770, we have
"Dresden aprons," "Dresden ruffles," showing that point to have been in
high fashion. Wraxall, too, 1778, describes a Polish beauty as wearing "a
broad Medicis of Dresden lace." As early as 1760 "Dresden work" is
advertised as taught to young ladies in a boarding-school at Kelso,[704]
together with "shell-work in grottoes, flowers, catgut, working lace on
bobbins or wires, and other useful accomplishments."
The lace of Saxony has sadly degenerated since the eighteenth century. The
patterns are old and ungraceful, and the lace of inferior workmanship, but,
owing to the low price of labour, they have the great advantage of
cheapness, which enables them to compete with France in the American and
Russian markets. In all parts of Germany there are some few men who make
lace. On the Saxon side of the Erzgebirge many boys are employed, and
during the winter season men of all ages work at the pillow; and it is
observed that the lace made by men is firmer and of a superior quality to
that of the women. The lace is a dentelle torchon of large pattern, much in
the style of the old lace of Ischia.[705]
The Saxon needle-lace of the present day is made in imitation of old
Brussels, with small flowers on a réseau. Some is worked in coloured
thread, and also black silk lace of the Chantilly type is made: of this the
Erzgebirge is the chief centre. This lace is costly, and is sold at Dresden
and other large towns of Germany, and particularly at Paris, where the
dealers pass it off for old lace. This fabric employed, in 1851, 300
workers. A quantity of so-called Maltese lace is also made, but torchon
predominates.
The Museum for Art and Industry, opened at Vienna in 1865, contains several
pattern-books of the sixteenth century, and in it has been exhibited a fine
collection of ancient lace belonging to General von Hauslaub,
Master-General of the Ordnance.
{264}GERMANY (NORTH AND SOUTH).
Germany in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was renowned for its
lacis, cut-work, and embroidery with thread on net, of which there are
several good examples in the Victoria and Albert Museum, together with
specimens of early Flemish work from their colonies on the Elbe,
established in the twelfth century by various German rulers. The work of
these towns is of later date--of the fifteenth century--and has continued
to the nineteenth century, when they made cambric caps, embroidered or
ornamented with drawn-work, and edged with bobbin-made Tönder lace, in the
style of eighteenth century Valenciennes.
"Presque dans toutes sortes d'arts les plus habiles ouvriers, ainsi que les
plus riches négociants, sont de la religion prétendue réformée," said the
Chancellor d'Aguesseau;[706] and when his master, Louis XIV., whom he, in
not too respectful terms, calls "le roi trop crédule," signed the Act of
Revocation (1685), Europe was at once inundated with the most skilful
workmen of France. Hamburg alone of the Hanse Towns received the wanderers.
Lubec and Bremen, in defiance of the remonstrances of the Protestant
princes, allowed no strangers to settle within their precincts. The
emigrants soon established considerable manufactures of gold and silver
lace, and also that now extinct fabric known under the name of Hamburg
point.[707]
Miss Knight, in her _Autobiography_, notes: "At Hamburg, just before we
embarked, Nelson purchased a magnificent lace trimming for Lady Nelson, and
a black lace cloak for another lady, who, he said, had been very attentive
to his wife during his absence."
On the very year of the Revocation, Frederic William, Elector of
Brandenburg, anxious to attract the fugitive workmen to his dominions,
issued from Potsdam an edict[708] in their favour. Crowds of French
Protestants responded to the call, and before many years had passed Berlin
alone boasted 450 lace manufactories.[709] Previous to this emigration she
had none. These "mangeurs d'haricots," as the Prussians styled the
emigrants, soon amassed large fortunes, and exported their laces to Poland
and to Russia. The tables were turned. France, who formerly exported lace
in large quantities to Germany, now received it from the hands of her
exiled workmen, and in 1723 and 1734 we find "Arrêts du Conseil d'Etat,"
relative to the importation of German laces.[710]
[Illustration: PLATE LXVII.
SWISS.--From near Neûchatel. Early nineteenth century. Similar in make to
Lille and some Devon lace.]
[Illustration: PLATE LXVIII.
GERMAN, NUREMBERG.--Used by the peasants on their caps. The cordonnet
suggests a Mechlin influence, whilst the heavy réseau is reminiscent of
some Antwerp and Flemish and Italian village laces of the end of the
seventeenth century.]
PLATE LXIX.
[Illustration: ENGLISH, BUCKS.--A unique piece designed and made by the
lace-makers for Queen Victoria in the early years of her reign; from her
lady-in-waiting Emma, Lady Portman, it has descended to the present owner,
Mrs. Lloyd Baker. The above is a complete section of the design, which is
outlined with gold thread.
Photos by A. Dryden from private collections.]
_To face page 264._
{265}The Landgrave of Hesse also received the refugees, publishing an edict
in their favour.[711] Two fabrics of fine point were established at
Hanover.[712] Leipsic, Anspach,[713] Elberfeld, all profited by the
migration. "On compte," writes Peuchet, "à Leipsig cinq fabriques de
dentelles et de galon d'or et argent."
A large colony settled at Halle, where they made "Hungarian" lace--"Point
de Hongrie,"[714] a term more generally applied to a stitch in
tapestry.[715] The word, however, does occasionally occur:--
"Your Hungerland[716] bands and Spanish quellio ruffs,
Great Lords and Ladies, feasted to survey."[717]
All these various fabrics were offsets of the Alençon trade.
Fynes Moryson expresses surprise at the simplicity of the German
costume--ruffs of coarse cloth, made at home. The Dantzickers, however, he
adds, dress more richly. "Citizens' daughters of an inferior sort wear
their hair woven with lace stitched up with a border of pearl. Citizens'
wives wear much lace of silk on their petticoats." Dandyism began in
Germany, says a writer,[718] about 1626, when the women first wore silver,
which appeared very remarkable, and "at last indeed white lace." A century
later luxury at the baths of Baden had reached an excess unparalleled in
the {266}present day. The bath mantles, "équipage de bain," of both sexes
are described as trimmed with the richest point, and after the bath were
spread out ostentatiously as a show on the baths before the windows of the
rooms. Lords and ladies, princesses and margraves, loitered up and down,
passing judgment on the laces of each new arrival.[719]
This love of dress, in some cases, extended too far, for Bishop
Douglas[720] mentions how the Leipsic students "think it more honourable to
beg, with a sword by their side, of all they meet than to gain their
livelihood. I have often," he says, "given a few groschen to one finely
powdered and dressed with sword and lace ruffles."
Concerning the manufactures of the once opulent cities of Nuremburg and
Augsburg we have no record. In the first-mentioned was published, in 1601,
the model book, engraved on copper, of Sibmacher.[721] On the frontispiece
is depicted a garden of the sixteenth century. From the branches of a tree
hangs a label, informing the world "that she who loves the art of
needlework, and desires to make herself skilful, can here have it in
perfection, and she will acquire praise, honour, and reward." At the foot
of the tree is seated a modest young lady yclept Industria; on the right a
second, feather-fan in hand, called Ignavia--Idleness; on the left a
respectable matron named Sofia--Wisdom. By way of a preface the three hold
a dialogue, reviewing, in most flattering terms, the work.
A museum was founded in 1865 at Nuremburg for works and objects connected
with the lace manufacture and its history. It contains some interesting
specimens of Nuremburg lace, the work of a certain Jungfrau Pickleman, in
the year 1600, presented by the widow Pfarrer Michel, of Poppenreuth.[722]
The lace is much of the Venetian character. One specimen has the figures of
a knight and a lady, resembling the designs of Vecellio. The museum also
possesses other curious examples of lace, together with a collection of
books relative to the lace fabric. (Plate LXVIII.)
"In the chapel of St. Egidius at Nuremburg," writes one {267}of our
correspondents, "we were led to make inquiries concerning sundry
ponderous-looking chairs, bearing some resemblance to confessionals, but
wanting the side compartments for the penitents. We learned that they
belonged to the several guilds (Innung), who had undertaken to collect
money for the erection of a new church after the destruction of the old by
fire. For this end the last members sworn in of every trade sat in their
respective chairs at the church doors on every Sunday and holiday. The
offerings were thrown into dishes placed on a raised stand on the right of
the chair, or into the hollow in front. The devices of each trade were
painted or embossed on circular plates, said to be of silver, on the back
of each chair. One Handwerksstuhl in particular attracted our attention; it
was that of the passmenterie-makers (in German, Portenmacher or Posamentier
Handwerk), which, until the handicrafts became more divided, included the
lace-makers. An elegant scroll-pattern in _rilievo_ surrounds the plate,
surmounted by a cherub's head, and various designs, resembling those of the
pattern-books, are embossed in a most finished style upon the plate,
together with an inscription dated 1718."
Misson, who visited Nuremberg in 1698, describes the dress of a
newly-married pair as rich in the extreme--that of the bridegroom as black,
"fort chargé de dentelles"; the bride as tricked out in the richest
"dentelle antique," her petticoat trimmed with "des tresses d'or et de
dentelle noire."
In the Victoria and Albert Museum there are two women's ruffs from
Nuremberg belonging to the latter part of the sixteenth or early
seventeenth century, and embroidered in blue and black silk and white
cotton, and edged with a coarse thread Mechlin lace with a large meshed
irregular plaited réseau, probably late seventeenth century.
Perhaps the finest collection of old German point is preserved, or rather
was so, in 1840, in the palace of the ancient, but now extinct,
Prince-Archbishops of Bamberg.
Several more pattern-books were published in Germany. Among the most
important is that printed at Augsburg, by John Schwartzenburg, 1534. It is
printed in red, and the patterns, mostly borders, are of delicate and
elegant design. (See APPENDIX.)
Secondly comes one of later date, published by Sigismund Latomus at
Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1605; and lastly, that {268}of "Metrepière Quinty,
demor[=a]t dempre legl[=i]e de iii roies," a cul[=o]ge (Cologne), 1527.
In Austria, writes Peuchet, "les dentelles de soie et de fil ne sont pas
moins bien travaillées." Many of the Protestant lace-workers took refuge in
the cities of Freyburg and Altenburg.
There is a collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum of cuffs
embroidered in satin stitch, and edged with bobbin-lace "torchon" of the
peasants' work in Slavonia in the eighteenth century. The patterns resemble
Cretan and Russian laces.
There is a comparatively modern variety of lace made in Austria and Bohemia
which resembles the old Italian bobbin-lace; the school where it is taught
is under Government patronage. This industry was established as a means of
relieving the distress of the Tyrol in 1850, and continues to flourish.
Austria sent to the International Exhibition of 1874 specimens of
needle-point and point plat made in the school of the Grand Duchess Sophie,
and specimens of border laces in the style of the Auvergne laces were
exhibited from the Erzgebirge and Bohemia.
At the Paris Exhibition, Austria and Vienna both exhibited copies of old
needle-point laces.
At Laybach, in Austria, there was at one time a bobbin-lace factory which
produced lace much esteemed in the eighteenth century.
The collection of Hungarian peasant lace in the Victoria and Albert Museum
collection contains specimens of coarse modern pillow-made lace, with rude
floral designs worked in thick thread or yellow silk.
The modern laces of Bohemia are tasteless in design. The fabric is of early
date. "The Bohemian women," writes Moryson, "delight in black cloth with
lace of bright colours." In the beginning of the nineteenth century upwards
of 60,000 people, men, women and children, were occupied in the Bohemian
Erzgebirge alone in lace-making. Since the introduction of the bobbin-net
machine into Austria, 1831, the number has decreased. There were in 1862
scarcely 8,000 employed in the common laces, and about 4,000 on
Valenciennes and points.[723]
PLATE LXX.
[Illustration: HUNGARIAN. BOBBIN LACE.--Latter half of nineteenth century.
Widths, 6¼ and 2½ in.
Victoria and Albert Museum.]
PLATE LXXI.
[Illustration: AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN, SOUTH SLAVONIAN. CUFF OF LINEN
EMBROIDERED IN SATIN STITCH IN WHITE SILK. WHITE SILK BOBBIN
LACE.--Eighteenth century. Width, 7½ in.
Victoria and Albert Museum.]
_To face page 268._
{269}SWITZERLAND.
"Dans un vallon fort bien nommé Travers,
S'élève un mont, vrai séjour des hivers."--_Voltaire._
In the Preface of the _Neues Modelbuch of Froschowern_, printed at Zurich
(see APPENDIX), occurs the following:--"Amongst the different arts we must
not forget one which has been followed in our country for twenty-five
years. Lace-making was introduced in 1536 by merchants from Italy and
Venice. Many women, seeing a means of livelihood in such work, quickly
learned it, and reproduced lace with great skill. They first copied old
patterns, but soon were enabled to invent new ones of great beauty. The
industry spread itself about the country, and was carried to great
perfection: it was found to be one specially suitable for women, and
brought in good profits. In the beginning these laces were used solely for
trimming chemises and shirts; soon afterwards collars, trimmings for cuffs,
caps, and fronts and bodies of dresses, for napkins, sheets, pillow-cases
and coverlets, etc., were made in lace. Very soon such work was in great
demand, and became an article of great luxury. Gold thread was subsequently
introduced into some of it, and raised its value considerably; but this
latter sort was attended with the inconvenience that it was more difficult
to clean and wash than laces made with flax threads only."[724]
The above account is interesting, not only in its reference to Switzerland,
but from its corroborative evidence of the Italian origin of lace.