I've just come across a website showing the famous portrait,
"The Laughing Cavalier":
http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org:8080/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=64959
If you click on the photo a separate window opens, showing an
enlargement in which you can see in detail the lace he is wearing on his
cuff. It is so beautiful, and must be quite early, since the date of
the picture is 1624. This means that, although it looks to me like 19th
century Bedfordshire lace, it must be something else. Perhaps some sort
of needlelace? Can anyone suggest what it might really have been? I'd
love to know.
The description of this artwork suggests that his costume is decorated
with symbols of love; is it possible that the lace he is so carefully
displaying to the artist also contained some similar meaning?
By the way, I heard of the website because the painting forms part of an
exhibition about fencing and fashion in the Renaissance, so there may be
more pictures of interest to lacemakers. If anyone happens to be in
London and visits the Wallace Collection, perhaps they'd tell us more
about it?
Linda Walton,
(in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, U.K., where we are having a little
sunshine this morning, but the forecast is for even more rain. It seems
that we have just survived the wettest April on record, and May is
bidding fair to be similar, yet we are still officially in drought, so I
suppose I shouldn't complain . . . ).
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