Venetian gros point needle lace

 

Venetian gros point is an Italian type of needle lace made in the seventeenth century that is characterised by three-dimensional lace scrolls in a baroque design. It was popular from about 1650 to 1660 and was made in fine thread, entirely of buttonhole stitches. First the outline of the motif was couched onto a background fabric and the base layer of filling stitches worked within the couched outlines to produce a flat piece of lace. The filling stitches were made by working one row of buttonhole stitches into the row above leaving spaces where required to make the holes in the patterns. Once the filling stitches are completed the thicker raised edges are worked. This is done by couching additional threads over the couched outlines and then securing them to the lace with closely worked buttonhole stitches. Much of the skill of the designer depends on raising some areas only slightly and padding others quite fully, to give contrast and a three-dimensional appearance to the finished lace.

As the buttonholing over the raised cordonnette progresses loops of buttonhole stitches or picots can also be added into the edge of the work. Once all the raised areas have been completed, separate rings of needle lace called couronnes can also be added, which can also be decorated with loops and picots. In fact the more decorated all the elements are the better! Finally the finished lace motif can be removed from its backing. This type of lace was made by a team of lacemakers each making separate motifs or specialising in different aspects of the work, depending on the structure of the workshop, with the beginners making the simple couronnes. Once the motifs were complete it would be the job of a specialised lacemaker to join them together to form the complete design. This could be done by sewing them directly on to one another or by joining them with thin lines or bars of buttonhole stitching.

Venetian gros point is a heavy lace that is seen to best advantage when it is laid flat so it was ideal for edgings, flounces and church vestments. This image shows part of a lace border dated from about 1660 which could have been used round a skirt, cuffs or church robe. When Venetian gros point was used as a collar it was spread flat over the shoulders and could also be used around the wrists of a garment or as a panel on each side of a neck opening.

By 1670 cravats had become fashionable for menswear. They comprised a long strip of linen with lace attached at each end, which was twisted round the neck and tied at the front, allowing the lace ends to be displayed below the chin and over the coat, as you can see in this painting from 1685 showing William III when he was Prince of Orange. The Prince has knotted his cravat, but an alternative style was to tie the ends together with a separate ribbon, passing round all the material and forming a bow at the front. The skill and time required to make Venetian gros point meant it was expensive. For example James II of England spent about £36 on a Venetian cravat for his coronation in 1685, which would cost the equivalent of over £4000 today. However, considering the work involved in making the lace, I really don’t think this is too high a price!

Bobbin Brown of Cranfield and his lace bobbins

William Brown was the eldest of ten children and was born in Cranfield in Bedfordshire in 1793. He described himself as a bobbin maker in the census returns of 1841, 1851 and 1861. This was unusual as most bobbin makers were not so specific and described themselves as woodturners or labourers. However, he was called Bobbin Brown by the local people so presumably his greatest trade was in lace bobbins. He had six children with his first wife, Sarah, but sadly she died in 1847 and in the 1851 census William is described as living with his unmarried daughter Mary. However, in 1857, at the age of 64, he married again, this time to a 44-year-old lacemaker called Hannah and they had two sons, one of whom it is thought later became a bobbin maker.

William’s bobbins are characterised by a small bulbous head with a slight dome at the top and a shallow pointed tail end. He made a large quantity of bobbins many of them inscribed with names and messages. His lettering is always coloured red and the letters are very neat although his spelling is sometimes incorrect, which may indicate he was not very literate. The bobbins in the image at the top of this post read from left to right ‘Sarah Ions my D[ear] Mother’, ‘My dear Father’, ‘George Burt my brother Jan 1856’ and ‘Love don’t forsake me’. Interestingly the bobbin with the spiral inscription follows a left hand spiral indicating that William was left handed. It also does not feature the characteristic domed head but I think the rest of the bobbin is so obviously William’s work that the head is a replacement, probably made by another bobbin maker to replace one that became chipped or broken.

The bobbins with single names in the next image read from left to right Mary, Dan[i]el, James, John. These are all common names of the time and William would probably have had a stock of them for sale in contrast to the longer and more complicated messages above which would have been specifically made to commission. The name bobbins also have very similar patterns of coloured dots at the back, which you can see in the image above, using his trademark colours of red, black and yellow.

William also made many bobbins inlaid with pewter. They were made by incising the bone or wood of the shank and then pouring molten pewter into the channels. They are called tigers, leopards or butterflies depending on the shapes of the pewter. All the bobbins in the image are tigers, because they have stripes of pewter, but the one on the right also includes  the name Joseph and a V shape called a butterfly. A leopard bobbin would include pewter circles. Over the years, the pewter used by several other bobbin makers has corroded and fallen out of the grooves in the bobbins, but William used a type of pewter with a low tin content which has survived well and gives a lovely silvery shine to them. William made a huge number of beautiful bobbins through his life, many of which survive today in excellent condition and are still used by contemporary lacemakers so I feel his nickname of Bobbin Brown is well deserved.

Lace fashions in 1919

This image of two elegant women at the races in Paris shows wide bands of lace being worn at the neck, waist and knees. The woman on the right also has a parasol edged with a  fringe of lace. This wide lace with a bold abstract pattern was probably Torchon or heavy Cluny lace or it could have been Swiss embroidered lace, all of which were fashionable at the time. An article in the American magazine The Lace and Embroidery Review for the year 1919 reports that many types of lace were fashionable in Europe and production had begun to increase following the ending of the First World War at the end of the previous year. In particular, reporters had found beautiful handmade applique, duchesse and rose point laces for sale in Belgium, of the style shown below.

   

 The London correspondent of the Review reported an increase in the use of lace in fashion especially in evening wear, as flounces on straight skirts and as short cap sleeves. However, much of this British lace was heirloom lace that women already owned rather than new purchases. The reporter noted that wearing lace had been considered slightly old fashioned but ‘Today laces make the elderly look young and the young even more youthful.’ They also noted that lace was quite scarce at the time so was also sought after because of its rarity value.

Reports from America suggested that one of the best selling laces was Valenciennes, but in Europe laces such as Chantilly, filets, venises and vals (Valenciennes) were also selling well. The sales of good quality laces, like the Chantilly lace in the image, were being buoyed up by the number of weddings and parties being celebrated following the armistice at the end of the war. The reporter noted that frills of lace, net and fabric were popular and women wanted lace frills on accessories, such as hats, handkerchiefs and veils, as well as on dresses and blouses. It seems that buyers and designers were keen to embellish clothing with lace and frills after the war years, but this fashion for lace was short lived as more simple designs prevailed during the 1920s.