Devon It is a complicated problem. Perhaps the first sentence anyone sees for the index to the collection would be "Place names are code for a set of structural elements, and are no guarantee that the pieces were made in that location."
And perhaps a lace with the Maltese cross should be labeled "Maltese type, commonly made on Malta, and In Bedfordshire and Saxony, possibly other locations also." Point ground is a special problem because it is clear that these types of laces were made in every lace making country during the 19th century. I have a book of Russian embroideries and laces from one of their museums and it clearly contains some point ground laces. But the 19th century may have been a special case. Travel was beginning to be easier, international commerce was picking up. In the Russian literature that I have read, I am always surprised by the easy connections to Europeans living in Russia. (I belong to the set that believes that while literature is not true, its background has to carry verisimilitude - it has to reflect reality to be effective in conveying its message.) What I saw in the laces at the Art Institute of Chicago is that very similar laces were made in Milan and Flanders during the period 1650-1750. These were all part laces, particularly tape laces (braid laces). They are had to tell apart. Levey thinks the distinguishing factor is that Milanese used double braids (braids going and returning) to attach the tape to itself. But Flemish laces used a picoted braid cast across a gap, sewn, carried along the edge of the tape, flung across the gap to the first tape, carried along its edge, etc, etc. The braid would probably have been hung in after the tape was completed, but the double braid would be made with the weaver and edge pair and immediately reincorporated in its original tape. Also, as far as I know, the Milanese laces never developed into the kind of part laces, needing pairs added and subtracted, which included the kind of complex motifs of the later Brussels laces. This is so hard to talk about, the situation is so complicated. What I am trying to say is that Flemish tape laces developed into Flemish part laces, which developed into Brussels part laces. But the Milanese tape laces didn't have that kind of development. Instead we get Cantu/Venetian. It is possible that lace styles may have been made in many places (such is the case in the modern world, taken to extremes) that would have been less true hundreds of years ago. I think we have to take into account the ease of travel at a particular time, or its opposite, the ease of communication, or its opposite. This changed over time as well. Railroads began in the late 1700s (I think), but they are primarily a 19th c development, and radically changed the travel issue. Ease of travel and its expense for persons of different socio-economic levels probably also changed. So while we know that point ground was made everywhere in the 19th century, and while it may be possible for that to be true of other earlier laces, we have to be careful about stating it as a constant possibility with equal probability. Possibility and probability are not the same. Lorelei - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
