You will all know by now that I have spent a lot of time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY ) web site.
I went looking for other "glass lace bobbins" using Gertrude Whiting as starting clues as I thought she had placed another glass bobbin in the museum as well as the one which I had already found. I was wrong. If it is there I cant find it. However I did find a remarkable "bobbin like" object when I typed in "Spanish Glass" In the key words. It was labeled as a "Glass Spindle" and it appears to me that it was a good description for it as it has a wooden base. I am not sure from the picture if the wooden base is attached to the spindle, if so it will help to stabilize the spin ( I sometimes drop-spindle spin) My real question is whether that glass lace bobbin that is in the met collection and illustrated in Whiting is really a glass lace bobbin. Gertrude herself seems to have some reticence about it as talking about it being presentation bobbin or something (Before page 207 she chats on about this sort of thing) Quite honestly it ( The one in GWs book) makes some sense that it is not a lace bobbin. 1. It is 17 cms long 2. It is glass and Pyrex glass was not around 3. It is a fussy object and would be a pain to use (impractical) 4. It would be so expensive for a lace maker. On the other hand drop spindle spinning is a "peasant" occupation so they would not use a beautiful glass spindle, but perhaps an 18C lady would love to be seen with such an object in her drawing room? I ma struggling here. I would appreciate your opinions and ideas about this. The Hypothesis is that "The Venetian glass bobbin in Gertrude Whiting book is not a lace bobbin but a spindle" To see the two object here is how| Go to www.metmuseum.org, then to Collection Data Base, choose European Sculpture and Decorative Arts. Then for key word type in "methods and materials". Then scroll through until you come to the beautiful pink Venetian glass bobbin. To see the Spanish glass spindle, follow the above but instead of using Methods and Materials as the key words, type in "Spanish Glass" and it pops up usually on the first page. Any help or ideas would be appreciated Brian and Jean >From Cooranbong. Australia You can read my bobbin stuff on: http://tiny.cc/egb85 - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. Photo site: http://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003
