On Jun 30, 2005, at 23:58, Alice Howell wrote (in response to Carolyn):
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7332317820
I am very curious. This doesn't look like anything from the 17th
century to
me. For one thing, it is quite small. Any handkerchiefs that I've
ever
heard of from prior to the 19th c. were quite large. Also, I was
under the
impression that corners in lace were not developed until the later
half of
the nineteenth/twentieth century.
[...] it is small. This size today we call a hanky. However,
needlelace is fairly firm and I would think that a hanky with this
much firm lace would not be much fun to carry, and it is true that
older hankies were much larger than todays'. Consider that it might
have been made as a small doily. It would look lovely under a
sculpture or flower vase. And the 3-dimensional part would show up
well.
Yes, but did they *have* doilies, to put under a vase or sculpture, in
mid 1600 hundreds? I know they used carpets to show off their prized
possessions, but I've never seen (in paintings) an intricate doily like
that used in the same place.
Most of the lace made then - whether needle or bobbin - was made either
for the Church, or for the top 5% of the population, and it was still
considered something very, very, special, being out-of-sight
expensive... Surely, then, not something to serve as a frothy
background to a marble bust of Julius Cesar or Homer? Besides, those
sculptures were *big*, as were the flower vases, while this thing is
dainty, at 12-12.5" square *total* area. You set a 17th century vase on
it, and only the little corners of the lace peek out from underneath.
Total waste of your money, since you get no status-boost :)
It's true that "corners in lace - late" apply to Bobbin Lace only; NL
doesn't have to face the same constraints of design as some of the BL
does, and hankies with corners - some quite dainty - were made in NL
fairly early (mid 18th c? I sem to remember that some of the NL hankies
in the Cone Sisters collection at the Baltimore Museum of art were as
early as that))
I have another doubt about the dating of the piece... To quote from
the site (Yes! I *could* copy and paste! Much to my surprise<g>)
"Handmade French Point de France Needlelace. Mid to late 1600's."
“Point d France was developed by Louis XIV and finance minister
Colbert, to provide a French industry of fine needle laces in the mid
1600's.
As my memory gets worse and worse, my dependence on handy resources
grows stronger... According to the Heritage Dictionary, Louis XIV
wasn't even *born* till 1638. True, he became king at the tender age of
5 (1643), but I doubt he was discussing lace production with Colbert at
that point :)
In fact, according to Pat Earnshaw's "Lace in Fashion", it was only in
1661 that Louis had a chance to repeal his mother's (Anne of Austria)
and her second husband's (Mazarin) proscriptions against the excessive
use of lace, and that's when Colbert started to encourage "home
manufacture" of lace - importing teachers and designers and planting
them in existing needlework (not *lace*, mind you) centres.
But that would have taken time to take root and to poduce the "point
de France" look, so we can abandon the idea of the piece being
mid-1600's right away. Not even by stretching one's imagination to the
outermost limits, would that piece have been produced then. Even, if it
is, indeed, "point de France" (I wouldn't know, not being a
lace-historian). Late 1600? Maybe. Though I'd still like to see some
provenance on it, before I shelled out the money (supposing I had it,
that is <g>). Not that it's not worth $500+, even if it was made
yesterday; it must have taken hours and hours to make...
I have no idea at all, whether the arrangement of the motifs is
consistent with the particular lace (point de France) look, or even the
period it's been ascribed to - Devon might know, and I hope she'll
pitch in with her insights. But, mathematically challenged as I have
always been, I still don't see how we get (another successful quote
from the page? Yes! <g>):
lace that is about 400 years old.
In my arithmetic, 1650 (mid-1600) and 400 makes 2050; I'll be long gone
by then, not spouting off on Arachne :) Unless "about" is the same as
my answer to the history teacher at the U, when she asked when the
Spinning Jenny was invented, and I said: "sometime in the 18th century"
(even then, my inerest in history was minimal, but the course was
compulsory)... :)
I had no trouble at all accessing all the detail photos (even though my
screen configuration is totally different from that described by
Alice), some of which seem to show the wrong side of the piece, and I
found those at least as interesting as the photos of the right side.
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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