Dear Historians - especially those new to the study of Lace, The New York Times article from Devon leads me to recommend a book about the period when Rembrandt was painting. Devon mentions Sweden's king and the wearing of a red ribbon to secure the end of a thin braid. This is very clearly depicted in the book Knipling.Lace.Spitz about Christian IV and Bobbin Lace, which came with a separate folio of lace patterns from the 1600's, with adaptations for use today. Published in 2001, in Denmark, ISBN 87-988400-0-2. Larger lace guilds may have book and folio in their libraries. Everyone interested in lace history of northern Europe, when national boundaries were very different from today, should become familiar with this. It contains many originals and adaptations of lace patterns in color, but that is not all. It came with a separate large folio of lace patterns. You can recreate royal period laces for yourself or period costumes! The cover of the book shows Danish King Christian IV (1577-1648) with a braid and red ribbon. His lace collar over royal robes and jewels is spectacular.  Â
I would love to own a book of this quality published by Dutch lace experts - focused on Rembrandt's paintings of lace. Please! Please! Does such a book exist? Christian IV's sister, Anne of Denmark, was married to James the I (of England) and VI (of Scotland) son of Mary, Queen of Scots. Queen Anne is featured in the 2013 book - In Fine Style, The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion - by Anna Reynolds, 978-1-905686-44-5. This book includes chapters devoted to royal male fashions and laces. Another informative book for costume scholars is the 2008 book - Merchants, Princes and Painters, Silk Fabrics in Italian and Northern Paintings 1300-1550 - by Lisa Monnas, 978-0-300-11117-0. Lace and silk were exclusive to royalty and the most wealthy and powerful families in Europe. Enjoy your research. There is so little appearing on Arachne these days, that I have left the letter Devon wrote attached to this for those who might like to make a copy to put with the article in your files or enclose in referenced books. As usual, I've sent bcc's to my private list of gmail users. If someone will comment on this memo, then the vast majority using gmail will know to look at http://www.mail-archive.com/lace@arachne.com/index.html to find it. Jeri Ames in Maine USALace and Embroidery Resource Center In a message dated 3/4/2019 3:56:36 PM Eastern Standard Time, devonth...@gmail.com writes: This article appeared in the New York Times magazine section this week. Iposted it on the International Organization of Lace's facebook page whereit has been very popular. Jeri Ames has encouraged me to post it on arachneas well. Here is the link:https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/27/magazine/rembrandt-jan-six.htmlThere are several interesting things in this article. One is that thedealer Jan Six XI was immediately attracted to the lace on the paintingwhich is a collar style that he claims was only in fashion between1633-1635. I am extremely impressed with his lace knowledge. Gunnel and Iactually did a bit of a survey on Friday, over Skype, trying to prove ordisprove this theory using portraits and we think he is pretty muchcorrect. There was an outlier in the form of a Swedish monarch, but itmight be possible that the painting is not correctly dated. Also a popularstyle at the time was a thin lock of hair with a red ribbon which appearson two of the paintings.Another aspect of the article deals with a purported Rembrandt habit ofpainting the white of the lace first, then putting on the black. At onepoint I was looking at the lace in Rembrandts very acutely for an articleI never wrote, and I think I concluded that he changed this pattern whenthe style of lace changed to be less heavy. He painted for quite a longtime and lace styles changed.. Also, my theory is that, given it was astudio situation with Rembrandt probably painting the eyes and maybe thehands of the portraits but leaving costume details to others, I am not surethat we can go overboard with identifying all the portraits that have lacepainted this way as being Rembrandts.Apart from the interesting lace details, is a story full of pathos abouthow members of the Six family have to become guardians of the family artcollection, leading to inter-generational conflict about framing, forinstance. They don't mention it, but I think that the Six family are alsodonors to the Rijksmuseum's lace collection. These 17th century laces ofthe 1630s are very hard to come by. I don't know that we have any in ourcollection. However, Frieda Sorber tells me that she knows of some inprivate hands and some will be loaned for Frieda's exhibit that is to takeplace in Antwerp in 2020. I have been speaking nonchalantly in front of myhusband about going to this exhibit as though it was a foregone conclusionand he hasn't vociferously resisted the premise, so hopefully I may seethem.Devon - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
