Thursday, August 31, 2017

Baroque Lace and Other Textile Fragments from Italy

Linen bobbin-lace
ca. 1600-1700
Italy
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Linen needle lace (Man's collar in Venetian style)
ca. 1650-75
Italy
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Linen needle lace (Chalice cover)
ca. 1675-1700
Italy
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Linen needle lace (Angel with palm and crown of martyrdom)
ca. 1675-1725
Italy
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

LACE – A slender open-work fabric of linen, cotton, silk, woollen, or metal threads, usually ornamented with inwrought or applied patterns.

The men sate at home spinnying and woorkyng of Lace.

– William Watreman, Fardle of facions conteining the aunciente maners of Affrike and Asia (translated 1555)

                              *

The King's Edict prohibiting all his Subjects from using any Gold or Silver, either fine or counterfeit; all Embroiderie, and all Lace of Millan, or of Millan fashion.

– title of sumptuary proclamation issued by James I in 1613

                              *

The busy town . . . where finest lace industrious lasses weave. 

– John Gay, An Epistle to the Earl of Burlington, 1715

                              *

In the shadows lay fine webs and laces of ice.

– George Macdonald, Annals of a quiet neighborhood, 1866

Silk damask
ca. 1500-1600
Italy
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Silk and metallic thread embroidery on linen
ca. 1500-1700
Italy
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Silk
ca, 1600-1625
Italy
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Silk and metallic thread brocade
ca. 1600-1700
Italy
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Silk  and metallic thread brocade
ca. 1650-1700
Italy
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Silk damask
ca. 1675-1725
Italy
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Silk embroidery on silk grosgrain
ca. 1700-1725
Italy
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Silk satin brocade
ca. 1700-1725
Italy
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Silk appliqué with metallic trim on silk 
ca. 1700-1800
Italy
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Silk
ca. 1700-1800
Italy
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Citations from the Oxford English Dictionary.