the massacre of St. Bartholomew, concealed himself in a bale of goods, in
which he reached Geneva, and was hospitably received by the inhabitants.
When, after the lapse of near a hundred and twenty years, crowds of French
emigrants arrived in the city, driven from their homes on the Revocation of
the Edict of Nantes, a descendant of this same Thelusson took a body of
2,000 refugees into his service, and at once established a manufacture of
lace.[725] The produce of this industry was smuggled {270}back into France,
the goods conveyed across the Jura over passes known only to the bearers,
by which they avoided the custom-house duties of Valence. "Every day,"
writes Jambonneau, himself a manufacturer, "they tell my wife what lace
they want, and she takes their orders." Louis XIV. was furious.[726]
Though lace-making employed many women in various parts of the country, who
made a common description while tending their flocks in the mountains,
Neufchâtel has always been the _chef-lieu_ of the trade. "In this town,"
says Savary, "they have carried their works to such a degree of perfection,
as to rival the laces of Flanders, not only in beauty but in quality." We
have ourselves seen in Switzerland guipures of fine workmanship that were
made in the country, belonging to old families, in which they have remained
as heirlooms; and have now in our possession a pair of lappets, made in the
last century at Neufchâtel, of such exquisite beauty as not to be surpassed
by the richest productions of Brussels.
Formerly lace-making employed a large number of workwomen in the Val de
Travers, where, during his sojourn at Moutiers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau tells
us he amused himself in handling the bobbins.
In 1780 the lace trade was an object of great profit to the country,
producing laces valuing from 1 batz to upwards of 70 francs the ell, and
exporting to the amount of 1,500,000 francs; on which the workwomen gained
800,000, averaging their labour at scarcely 8 sols per day. The villages of
Fleurens and Connet were the centre of this once flourishing trade,[727]
now ruined by competition with Mirecourt. In 1814 there were in the
Neufchâtel district, 5628 lace-makers; in 1844 a few aged women alone
remained. The modern laces of Neufchâtel resemble those of Lille, but are
apt to wash thick. (Plate LXVII.)
In 1840, a fabric of "point plat de Bruxelles dite de Genève" was
established at Geneva.
By the sumptuary laws of Zurich,[728] which were most {271}severe, women
were especially forbidden to wear either blonde or thread lace, except upon
their caps. This must have been a disadvantage to the native fabrics, "for
Zurich," says Anderson, "makes much gold, silver, and thread lace."
Several pattern-books for lace were published in Switzerland in the later
years of the sixteenth century; one, without a date, but evidently printed
at Zürich about 1540, by C. Froschowern, is entitled, _Nüw Modelbüch
allerley Gattungen Däntel_, etc. Another one, entitled _New Model-buch_,
printed by G. Strauben, 1593, at St. Gall, is but a reprint of the third
book of Vecellio's _Corona_. Another, called also _Sehr Newe Model-Buch_,
was published at Basle in 1599, at the printing-house of Ludwig Künigs.
{272}CHAPTER XXI.
DENMARK, SWEDEN AND RUSSIA.
----
DENMARK.
"ERASTE.--Miss, how many parties have you been to this week?
"LADY.--I do not frequent such places; but if you want to know how much
lace I have made this fortnight, I might well tell you."
--Holberg. _The Inconstant Lady._
"The far-famed lace of Tönder."
"A certain kind of embroidery, or cut-work in linen, was much used in
Denmark before lace came in from Brabant," writes Professor Thomsen. "This
kind of work is still in use among the peasants, and you will often have
observed it on their bed-clothes."
The art of lace-making itself is supposed to have been first brought over
by the fugitive monks at the Reformation, or to have been introduced by
Queen Elizabeth,[729] sister of Charles V., and wife of Christian II., that
good queen who, had her husband been more fortunate, would, says the
chronicler, "have proved a second Dagmar to Denmark."
Lace-making has never been practised as a means of livelihood throughout
Denmark. It is only in the province of North Schleswig (or South Jutland,
as it is also called) that a regular manufacture was established. It is
here that King Christian IV. appears to have made his purchases; and while
travelling in Schleswig, entries constantly occur in his journal book, from
1619 to 1625, such as, "Paid to a female lace-worker 28 rixdollars--71
specie to a lace-seller for lace for the use of the children," and many
similar {273}notices.[730] It was one of those pieces of Tönder lace that
King Christian sends to his Chamberlain, with an autograph letter, ordering
him to cut out of it four collars of the same size and manner as Prince
Ulrik's Spanish. They must contrive also to get two pairs of manchettes out
of the same.
In the museum of the palace at Rosenborg are still preserved some shirts of
Christian IV., trimmed with Schleswig lace of great beauty (Fig. 115), and
in his portrait, which hangs in Hampton Court Palace, the lace on his shirt
is of similar texture.
[Illustration: Fig. 115.
SHIRT COLLAR OF CHRISTIAN IV.--(Castle of Rosenborg, Copenhagen.)]
It was in the early part of this monarch's reign[731] that the celebrated
Golden Horn, so long the chief treasure of the Scandinavian Museum at
Copenhagen, was found by a young {274}lace-maker on her way to her work.
She carried her prize to the king, and with the money he liberally bestowed
upon her she was enabled, says tradition, to marry the object of her
choice.
The year 1647 was a great epoch in the lace-making of Jutland. A merchant
named Steenbeck, taking a great interest in the fabric, engaged twelve
persons from Dortmund, in Westphalia, to improve the trade, and settled
them at Tönder, to teach the manufacture to both men and women, rich and
poor. These twelve persons are described as aged men, with long beards,
which, while making lace, they gathered into bags, to prevent the hair from
becoming entangled among the bobbins. The manufacture soon made great
progress under their guidance, and extended to the south-western part of
Ribe, and to the island of Romö.[732] The lace was sold by means of "lace
postmen," as they were termed, who carried their wares throughout all
Scandinavia and parts of Germany.
Christian IV. protected the native manufacture, and in the Act of
1643,[733] "lace and suchlike pinwork" are described as luxurious articles,
not allowed to be imported of a higher value than five shillings and
sixpence the Danish ell.[734] A later ordinance, 1683, mentions "white and
black lace which are manufactured in this country," and grants permission
to the nobility to wear them.[735]
Christian IV. did not patronise foreign manufactures. "The King of
Denmark," writes Moryson, "wears but little gold lace, and sends foreign
apparel to the hangman to be disgraced, when brought in by gentlemen."
[Illustration: Fig. 116.
TÖNDER LACE, DRAWN MUSLIN.--Denmark, eighteenth century. Width 2¾ inches.
Victoria and Albert Museum.
_To face page 274._]
{275}About the year 1712 the lace manufacture again was much improved by
the arrival of a number of Brabant women, who accompanied the troops of
King Frederick IV. on their return from the Netherlands,[736] and settled
at Tönder. We have received from Jutland, through the kind exertions of Mr.
Rudolf Bay, of Aalborg, a series of Tönder laces, taken from the
pattern-books of the manufacturers. The earlier specimens are all of
Flemish character. There is the old Flanders lace, with its Dutch flowers
and double and trolly grounds in endless variety. The Brabant, with fine
ground, the flowers and _jours_ well executed. Then follow the Mechlin
grounds, the patterns worked with a coarse thread, in many, apparently, run
in with the needle. There is also a good specimen of that description of
drawn muslin lace, commonly known under the name of "Indian work," but
which appears to have been very generally made in various manners. The
leaves and flowers formed of the muslin are worked round with a cordonnet,
by way of relief to the thick double ground (Fig. 116).[737] In the
Scandinavian Museum at Copenhagen is a pair of lappets of drawn muslin, a
fine specimen of this work.
The modern laces are copied from French, Lille, and Saxon patterns; there
are also imitations of the so-called Maltese. The Schleswig laces are all
remarkable for their fine quality and excellent workmanship. Guipure, after
the manner of the Venice points, was also fabricated. A fine specimen of
this lace may be seen decorating the black velvet dress of the youthful
daughter of Duke John of Holstein. She lies in her coffin within the
mortuary chapel of her family, in the castle of Sonderborg. Lace was much
used in burials in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when it really
appears people were arrayed in more costly clothing than in their lives.
The author of _Jutland and the Danish Islands_ has often seen mummies in
the Danish churches exposed to view tricked out in points of great
richness.
The lace industry continued to increase in value till the beginning of the
present century. The year 1801 may be considered its culminating point. At
that period the number of peasants employed in Tönder and its neighbourhood
alone was 20,000. Even little boys were taught to make lace till strong
enough to work in the fields, and there was scarcely a house without a
lace-maker, who would sit before her {276}cottage door, working from
sunrise till midnight, singing the ballads handed down from their Brabant
teachers.[738]
"My late father,"[739] writes Mr. F. Wulff, of Brede, "who began the lace
trade the end of the last century, first went on foot with his wares to
Mecklenburg, Prussia and Hanover: we consigned lace to all parts of the
world. Soon he could afford to buy a horse; and in his old age he
calculated he had travelled on horseback more than 75,000 English miles, or
thrice round the earth. In his youth the most durable and prettiest ground
was the old Flemish, much used by the peasants in Germany. It was solid,
and passed as an heirloom through several generations. Later, the fine
needle ground came in, and lastly, the fond clair, or point de Lille, far
less solid, but easier to work; hence the lace-makers became less skilful
than of old."
They had not many models, and the best workwomen were those who devoted
their whole life to one special pattern. Few were found so persevering. One
widow, however, is recorded who lived to the age of eighty and brought up
seven children on the produce of a narrow edging, which she sold at
sixpence a yard.
Each pattern had its proper name--cock-eye, spider, lyre, chimney-pot, and
feather.
The rich farmers' wives sat at their pillows daily, causing their household
duties to be performed by hired servants from North Jutland. Ladies also, a
century and a half ago, made it their occupation, as the motto of our
chapter, from the drama of Holberg, will show. And this continued till the
fashion of "hvidsom"--white seaming--the cut-work already alluded to, was
for a time revived. This work was, however, looked upon as _infra dig._ for
the wives of functionaries and suchlike, in whom it was unbecoming to waste
on such employment time that should be devoted to household matters. Our
informant tells of a lady in the north who thus embroidered the christening
robe of her child by stealth in the kitchen, fearing to be caught by her
visitors--cookery had in those days precedence over embroidery. Among the
hoards of this child, born 1755, was found a most exquisite collection of
old Tönder lace, embracing all the varieties made by her mother and
herself, from the thick Flemish to the finest needle-point.
PLATE LXXII.
[Illustration: RUSSIAN.--The upper piece of lace is needle-point "à brides
picotées." Modern reproduction of a sixteenth century design. Width, 3-3/8
in.
GERMAN. SAXON.--The lower piece bobbin-made by the peasants of the
Erzgebirge. Nineteenth century. Width, 3¼ in.
Victoria and Albert Museum.]
PLATE LXXIII.
[Illustration: RUSSIAN.--Old bobbin-made with coloured silk outlines. The
property of Madame Pogosky.
Photo by A. Dryden.]
_To face page 276._
{277}The fashion of cut-work still prevails in Denmark, where collars and
cuffs, decorated with stars, crosses, and other mediæval designs, are
exposed in the shop-windows of Copenhagen for sale--the work of poor
gentlewomen, who, by their needle, thus add a few dollars yearly to their
income.
From 1830 dates the decline of the Tönder lace. Cotton thread was
introduced, and the quality of the fabric was deteriorated.[740] The lace
schools were given up; and the flourishing state of agriculture rendered it
no longer a profitable employment either for the boys or the women.[741]
The trade passed, from the manufacturers into the hands of the hawkers and
petty dealers, who were too poor to purchase the finer points. The "lace
postmen" once more travelled from house to house with their little leathern
boxes, offering these inferior wares for sale.[742] The art died out. In
1840 there were not more than six lace manufacturers in Schleswig.
The old people, however, still believe in a good time coming. "I have in my
day," said an aged woman, "sold point at four thalers an ell, sir; and
though I may never do so again, my daughter will. The lace trade slumbers,
but it does not die."
SWEDEN.
At a very early period the Scandinavian goldsmith had learned to draw out
wires of gold and twine them round threads either of silk or flax--in fact
to _guiper_ them.
{278}Wadstena, where lies Queen Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of Henry
IV., is celebrated for its lace. The art, according to tradition, was
introduced among the nuns of the convent by St. Bridget on her return from
Italy. Some even go so far as to say she wrote home to Wadstena, ordering
lace from Rome; but, as St. Bridget died in 1335, we may be allowed to
question the fact: certain it is, though, the funeral coif of the saint, as
depicted in an ancient portrait, said to have been taken at Rome after
death, is ornamented with a species of perforated needlework.[743] By the
rules of the convent, the nuns of Wadstena were forbidden to touch either
gold or silver, save in their netting and embroidery. There exists an old
journal of the Kloster, called _Diarium Vadstenænse_, in which are,
however, no allusions to the art; but the letters of a Wadstena nun to her
lover _extra muros_, published from an old collection[744] of documents,
somewhat help us in our researches.
"I wish," she writes to her admirer, "I could send you a netted cap that I
myself have made, but when Sister Karin Andersdotter saw that I mingled
gold and silver thread in it, she said, 'You must surely have some
beloved.' 'Do you think so?' I answered. 'Here in the Kloster, you may
easily see if any of the brethren has such a cap, and I dare not send it by
anyone to a sweetheart outside the walls.' 'You intend it for Axel Nilson,'
answered Sister Karin. 'It is not for you to talk,' I replied. 'I have seen
you net a long hood, and talk and prattle yourself with Brother Bertol.'"
From netted caps of thread, worked in with gold and silver, the transition
to lace is easy, and history tells that in the middle ages the Wadstena
nuns "Knit their laces of {279}gold and silk." We may therefore suppose the
art to have flourished in the convents at an early date.
At the suppression of the monasteries, under Charles IX., a few of the
nuns, too infirm to sail with their sisters for Poland, remained in Sweden.
People took compassion on the outcasts, and gave them two rooms to dwell
in, where they continued their occupation of making lace, and were able,
for a season, to keep the secret of their art. After a time, however,
lace-making became general throughout the town and neighbourhood, and was
known to the laity previous to the dissolution of Wadstena--a favoured
convent which survived the rest of the other monasteries of Sweden.
"Send up," writes Gustaf Vasa, in a familiar letter[745] to his Queen
Margaret, "the lace passement made for me by Anne, the smith's daughter, at
Upsala; I want it: don't neglect this."[746]
In an inventory of Ericksholm Castle, drawn up in 1548, are endless entries
of "sheets seamed with cut-work, half worn-out sheets with open border of
cut-work, towels with cut-work and with the king's and queen's arms in each
corner, blue curtains with cut-work seams," etc.
The style of Wadstena lace changed with the times and fashion of the
national costume. Those made at present are of the single or double ground,
both black and white, fine, but wanting in firmness. They also make much
dentelle torchon, of the lozenge pattern, for trimming the bed-linen they
so elaborately embroider in drawn-work.
In 1830 the products in value amounted to 30,000 rixdollars. They were
carried to every part of Sweden, and a small quantity even to foreign
parts. One dealer alone, a Madame Hartruide, now sends her colporteurs
hawking Wadstena lace round the country. The fabric, after much depression,
has slightly increased of late years, having received much encouragement
from her Majesty Queen {280}Louisa. Specimens of Wadstena lace--the only
lace manufactory now existing in Sweden--were sent to the Great
International Exhibition of 1862.
Hölesom, or cut-work, is a favourite employment of Swedish women, and is
generally taught in the schools.[747] At the various bathing-places you may
see the young ladies working as industriously as if for their daily
sustenance; they never purchase such articles of decoration, but entirely
adorn their houses by the labours of their own hands. It was by a collar of
this hölesom, worked in silk and gold, that young Gustaf Erikson was nearly
betrayed when working as a labourer in the barn of Rankhytta, the property
of his old college friend, Anders Petersen. A servant girl observed to her
master, "The new farm-boy can be no peasant; for," says she, "his linen is
far too fine, and I saw a collar wrought in silk and gold beneath his
kirtle."
Gold lace was much in vogue in the middle of the sixteenth century, and
entries of it abound in the inventory of Gustavus Vasa and his youngest
son, Magnus.
In an inventory of Ericksholm, 1536, is a pair of laced sheets. It is the
custom in Sweden to sew a broad border of seaming lace between the breadths
of the sheets, sometimes wove in the linen. Directions, with patterns
scarcely changed since the sixteenth century, may be found in the _Weaving
Book_ published at Stockholm in 1828.[748]
Towards the end of 1500 the term "passement" appears in general use, in an
inventory of "Pontus de Gardia."
In the neighbourhood of Wadstena old soldiers, as well as women, may be
seen of a summer's evening sitting at the cottage doors making lace. Though
no other lace manufactory can be said to exist in Sweden beyond that of
Wadstena, still a coarse bobbin lace is made by the peasantry for home
consumption. The author has received from the Countess Elizabeth Piper,
late Grande Maîtresse to her Majesty the Queen of Sweden, specimens of
coarse pillow laces, worked by the Scanian peasant women, which, she
writes, "form a favourite occupation for the women of our province."
PLATE LXXIV.
[Illustration: RUSSIAN.--Part of a long border setting forth a Procession.
Lacis and embroidery in silk. The lace is bobbin-made in thread. Réseau
similar to Valenciennes. The Russian thread is good quality linen. Size of
portion shown 18½ x 14 in. The property of Madame Pogosky.
Photo by A. Dryden.]
_To face page 280._
{281}Latterly this manufacture has been protected and the workwomen
carefully directed.
Far more curious are the laces made by the peasants of Dalecarlia, still
retaining the patterns used in the rest of Europe two hundred years since.
The broader[749] kinds, of which we give a woodcut (Fig. 117), are from
Gaguef, that part of Dalecarlia where laces are mostly made and used.
Married women wear them on their summer caps, much starched, as a shelter
against the sun. Others, of an unbleached thread, are from Orsa. This lace
is never washed, as it is considered an elegance to preserve this
coffee-coloured tint. The firmness and solidity of these last laces are
wonderful.
[Illustration: Fig. 117.
DALECARLIAN LACE.]
The specimens from Rättwik are narrow "seaming" laces of the lozenge
pattern.
There is also a sort of plaiting used as a fringe, in the style of the
Genoese macramè, from the ends of a small {282}sheet which the peasants
spread over their pillows. No improvement takes place in the designs. The
Dalecarlian women do not make a trade of lace-making, they merely work to
supply their own wants.[750]
Fig. 118 represents a lace collar worn by Gustavus Adolphus, a relic
carefully preserved in the Northern Museum at Stockholm. On it is inscribed
in Swedish: "This collar was worn by Gustaf Adolf, King of Sweden, and
presented, together with his portrait, as a remembrance, in 1632, to Miss
Jacobina Lauber, of Augsburg, because she was the most beautiful damsel
present." In addition to this collar, there is preserved at the Royal
Kladskammar at Stockholm a blood-stained shirt worn by Gustavus at the
Battle of Dirschau, the collars and cuffs trimmed with lace of rich
geometric pattern, the sleeves decorated with "seaming" lace.
In an adjoining case of the same collection are some splendid altar-cloths
of ancient raised Spanish point, said to have been worked by the Swedish
nuns previous to the suppression of the monasteries. A small escutcheon
constantly repeated on the pattern of the most ancient specimens has the
semblance of a water-lily leaf, the emblem of the Stures, leading one to
believe they may have been of Swedish fabric, for many ladies of that
illustrious house sought shelter from troublous times within the walls of
the lace-making convent of Wadstena.
In the same cabinet is displayed, with others of more ordinary texture, a
collar of raised Spanish guipure, worked by the Princesses Catherine and
Marie, daughters of Duke Johan Adolf (brother of Charles X.). Though a
creditable performance, yet it is far inferior to the lace of convent make.
The making of this Spanish point formed a favourite amusement of the
Swedish ladies of the seventeenth century: bed-hangings, coverlets, and
toilets of their handiwork may still be found in the remote castles of the
provinces. We have received the photograph of a flower from an old bed of
Swedish lace--an heirloom in a Smaland castle of Count Trolle Bonde.
[Illustration: Fig. 118.
COLLAR OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.
_To face page 282._]
{283}RUSSIA.
After his visit to Paris early in the eighteenth century, Peter the Great
founded a manufacture of silk lace at Novgorod, which in the time of the
Empress Elizabeth fell into decay. In the reign of Catherine II. there were
twelve gold lace-makers at St. Petersburg, who were scarcely able to supply
the demand. In Russia lace-making and embroidery go hand in hand, as in our
early examples of embroidery, drawn-work, and cut-work combined.
Lace-making was not a distinct industry; the peasants, especially in
Eastern Russia, made it in their houses to decorate, in conjunction with
embroidery, towels, table-linen, shirts, and even the household linen, for
which purpose it was purchased direct from the peasants by the inhabitants
of the towns. Many will have seen the Russian towels in the International
Exhibition of 1874, and have admired their quaint design and bright
colours, with the curious line of red and blue thread running through the
pattern of the lace. Darned netting and drawn-work appear, as elsewhere, to
have been their earliest productions. The lace is loosely wrought on the
pillow, the work simple, and requiring few bobbins to execute the
vermiculated pattern which is its characteristic (Fig. 119, and Plates
LXXII.-IV.).
The specimens vary very much in quality, but the patterns closely resemble
one another, and are all of an oriental and barbaric character (Fig. 119).