Dear Spiders
apropos of Salvador Dali's "Woman at a Window":
<Snip>The author remarks on the oddity of a
spool of red thread sitting by the lacemaker's pillow when the lace is in
white. The author goes on to say that the red pricking, which I always
just
assumed was red to draw the viewer's eye to the work in an otherwise
pastel
shaded piece, was because that was the "preferred background for the
display
of lace in the early days of this art."
I've just been having a good look at the Dali painting, and I think I have
an explanation: she is working with gold thread. The simple edging would
be typical of metal thread work. And the thread on the spool would appear
orangy.
Lace prickings given to the workers by the commercial lace dealers during
the Middle Ages were pieces of parchment dipped in saffron dye to make the
white threads more visible (or so I read in the Spanish lace list). That is
the reason why even now, magazine or commercial prickings are printed in
reddish or bright orange paper.
I'd not heard of this use of saffron before. It could only have been common
in countries like Spain where saffron is cheap. In England and Northern
Europe, though it used to be grown, I think it was always a luxury dye and
would have been reserved for fine silks rather than utilitarian lace
prickings!
Thanks to whoever posted the site (I'm afraid I've lost track). It's a
lovely painting, and quite untypical of Dali's later, madder work. The
variation of Vermeer really is too weird.
Happy lacing
Bridget, in chilly Hertfordshire, England
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