Brussels lace

“ Every man would establish something to keep our native gold from crossing the water. Foreign travellers had their eyes open, and Lord Garden, a Scotch Lord of Session, who visited Brussels in 1787, thus writes to a countryman on the subject: "This day I bought you ruffles and some beautiful Brussels lace, the most light and costly of all manufactures. I had entertained, as I now suspect, a vain ambition to attempt the introduction of it into my humble parish in Scotland, but on inquiry I was discouraged. The thread is of so exquisite a fineness they cannot make it in this country. ”

“ That the workers in England could not compete successfully against the foreigner with their home-made threads we find over and over again. They also altered the Brussels designs, and instead of the beautiful "fillings" and open-work stitches, substituted heavy guipure bars. By this period "cordonnet" or "gimp" had come into use in Brussels lace. The "vrai réseau" or pillow-net ground, succeeded the "bride" about the end of the seventeenth century. ”

“ The manufacture of lace began in Brussels about the year 1400. The city excelled from the first in the quality of the work done there. This was due to the fineness of the thread of Brabant, which the women spun inch by inch with such painstaking care that it defied competition. A pound of flax was sometimes transmuted into lace worth several thousand dollars.
The lace industry was the only one in Flanders which survived the upheavals of the sixteenth century. Its prosperity alone tided the distracted people over their difficulties and saved them from the ruin which threatened. ”

“ Notwithstanding the overwhelming supply of imitations which modern ingenuity has created, real Brussels lace has maintained its value, like the precious metals and the precious stones. In the patterns of the best bone lace, the changeful influence of fashion is less marked than in most other branches of industry ”

“ The patterns in Brussels lace are of all kinds, but are chiefly imitations of French designs; it is a common thing to find Alençon and other French patterns copied in this lace. In France, Brussels lace was known by the name of “point d’Angleterre,” from the fact that great quantities of it were imported, and also smuggled into England during its prohibited importation in the lace-weaving period of Charles II.
Fig. ”

“ The thread used in Brussels lace is of the first importance. It is of extreme fineness, and the best quality, spun in underground rooms to avoid dryness of the air, is so fine as to be almost invisible. ”

“ Some qualities are better than others. In the better class the sprays are appliqued to the net, which is then cut away and the interstices of the design filled in with hand-made modes and{124} brides, making a very pretty and showy lace. The best lace made in Brussels now is
Point Gaze,
in which the finest modern lace is produced. Its chief characteristics are its superb designs, repeating many of the fine Renaissance patterns, its clear ground, and its use of shading in leaves and flowers, which, while it adds much to the sumptuous effect, is possibly too naturalistic. ”

“ Every woman knows the name of Brussels lace. The old capital of the low countries of Europe has long been famous for its lace. It is of great interest to note the conditions under which it is sometimes made. ”

“ In the City of Brussels a great deal of very pretty lace is exposed for sale. Englishwomen admire this lace and buy it. If they go straight from Belgium to England they can take it home without having to pay any duty; but if they pass through France they have to pay on all their new Brussels lace at the French Custom House. And many Englishwomen pass through France on their way from Belgium to England, because they prefer the short passage from Calais to Dover to the longer one from Ostend. ”

“ Then came the war—and the devastation of entire lace regions, like that of Bailleul in France, and of Ypres in Belgium. It is true that many of the refugee lace-women have been employed and encouraged during the four years, by certain committees in France and free Belgium. And in occupied Belgium, the unceasing efforts of the Brussels Lace Committee have borne rich fruit. Whether the higher [37] standards of lace design and technique, and the improved condition of the lace workers—better education, shorter hours, higher pay—will be maintained under post-war conditions is yet to be proved. ”

“ Owing to the protection formerly given by law to English laces, large quantities of Belgium laces are believed to have been smuggled into England under the name of "Point d'Angleterre," so as to evade the customs duties. (b) At the present day the finest quality of Brussels lace, in which needle-point sprigs are applied to Brussels bobbin-ground. (See Application lace, also Point d'Angleterre.)
Escurial.—A modern silk lace, made in imitation of Rose point. The patterns are outlined with a lustrous thread or cord. ”

“ Brussels is always associated in one's mind with its laces. We visited one of the manufactories. A dozen or twenty women were busy in a sunny, cheerful room, working out the pretty leaves and flowers, with needle and thread, for the point lace, or twisting the bobbins among the innumerable pins in the cushion before them to follow the pattern for the point appliqué. ”

“ Old Brussels lace was made on pillows, while the modern Brussels is worked with needles.
The visitor to Honiton, Beer, or any village around may see lace-making on pillows. The women have round or oval boards, stuffed so as to form a cushion, and placed on the knees of the worker: a piece of parchment is fixed over the pillow, with the pattern drawn on it; into this the pins are stuck through holes marked for the purpose. Often as many as four hundred bobbins are employed at a time on a pillow. ”

“ After the establishment of the Points de France by Colbert, Flanders was alarmed at the number of lace-makers who emigrated, and passed an act, dated Brussels, December 26th, 1698, {112}threatening with punishment any who should suborn her workpeople.
Lace-making forms an abundant source of national wealth to Belgium, and enables the people of its superannuated cities to support themselves, as it were, on female industry. [324] One-fourth of the whole population (150,000 women) were said to be thus engaged, in 1861. But a small number assemble in the ateliers; the majority work at home. ”

“ Under the impulse of fashion and luxury, lace receives the stamp of the special style of each country. Italy furnished its points of Venice and Genoa. The Netherlands, its Brussels, Mechlin, and Valenciennes. Spain, its silk blondes. England, its Honiton. France, its sumptuous point d'Alençon, and its black lace of Bayeux and Chantilly. Now, each style is copied by every nation; and though France cannot compete with Belgium in the points of Brussels, or the Valenciennes of Ypres, she has no rival in her points of Alençon and her white blondes, or her black silk laces. ”

“ Lydia Maynard, of Honiton, "in token of six pairs of ladies' lappets of unprecedented beauty, exhibited by her." About this time we read {405}in Bowen's Geography [1149] that at Honiton: "the people are chiefly employed in the manufactory of lace, the broadest sort that is made in England, of which great quantities are sent to London." "It acquired," says Lysons, "some years since, the name of Bath Brussels lace." ”

“ Considering that the workers received barely a cent an hour, one gets some idea of the magnitude of the task. The Béguinage in Ghent was the headquarters for the manufacture of this lace, but only a few old nuns remain there now who know the secrets of its making. Machine-made imitations flood the market, and the former process is too costly to [147] make it worth any one’s while to master it.
BRUSSELS POINT LACE.
Mechlin is the Flemish name for the town of Malines, and both words are used in connection with the lace which originated there. ”

“ And once these international guaranties were obtained, the Belgian Comité National was able to arrange for the distribution of the thread to the various, even remote, lace centers, and for the return of the finished laces to Brussels. They granted the women a subsidy of $10,000 and insured to each dentellière the chance to make at least three francs worth of lace a week—a small minimum, to be sure, but every one understood it might be increased [20] later, and that if each of the many thousands of workers was to have an equal opportunity, it could not in the beginning be more. ”

“ You are quite mistaken, my dear friend, about lace. It is fully as dear here as with us. At the same time I must say we never do see real "Brussels point" in Ireland; for even the Castle folk are satisfied with showing you nothing but their cast-off London finery; and as to lace, it is all what they call here "application,"—that is, the flowers and tracery are worked in upon common net, and are not part of the fabric, as in real "point de Bruxelles." After all, even this is as superior to "Limerick lace" as a foreign ambassador is, in manner, to a Dublin alderman. ”

“ Brussels is a paradise for women of taste; for where else can be found such laces and fairy webs, such garnitures of point de Bruxelles, of Valenciennes, of Malines, of Duchesse? A morning stroll down the Montagne de la Cour and the Madeleine is a feast for the eye, for lace-making is one of the fine arts; the large houses employ three or four first-class artists to draw the designs, and, as the competition is great, the efforts to surpass are immense. In making up a bride's trousseau, it is etiquette for the mother of the bride to give the white laces, the happy bridegroom the black ”

“ Why, everybody; there is hardly a house in Bruges without its cushion and bobbins.” While if you put the same question to such a celebrated lace dealer as M. Gillemont de Cock, who counts gold and silver medals from many nations, he will be very apt to answer: “Madame, before the war I knew of about thirty, now I can not say!” The Lace Committee at Brussels considers 5,000 a fair estimate for Bruges and her contributing villages, which is the number given, too, by Professor Maertens of the Normal School. ”

“ We have ourselves seen in Switzerland guipures of fine workmanship that were made in the country, belonging to old families, in which they have remained as heirlooms; and have now in our possession a pair of lappets, made in the last century at Neufchâtel, of such exquisite beauty as not to be surpassed by the richest productions of Brussels.
Formerly lace-making employed a large number of workwomen in the Val de Travers, where, during his sojourn at Moutiers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau tells us he amused himself in handling the bobbins. ”

“ Fashion has, in this case, been more constant than usual, since the taste for Brussels point has continued so decidedly among us, that we still monopolise a large proportion of the whole quantity made; the other variety, called Brussels plait, being more extensively used in France Spain, Russia, and other countries. In the latter description of lace, the flowers for the pattern are made separately on the pillow, and afterwards attached to net. It differs, in fact, but little from 19the best English Honiton, of which I shall speak hereafter. ”

“ In the corner of this class-room were the shelves with the essential skeins of thread; cotton for the Needle Point, linen for the Venise. The linen is more and more difficult to obtain, and since it is hard to handle and breaks easily, has been largely supplanted by cotton thread. There were large cardboard boxes for the drawings and the pricked working patterns; others for the little bobbin-lace roses and leaves and vines that were to be worked into Brussels Point ”

“ Hayman, of Sidmouth. (Fig. 156 is from one of the honeysuckle sprigs selected.)
Fig. 155.
Honiton Guipure.
To face page 410.
{411} The Honiton lace-makers show great aptitude in imitating the Brussels designs, and [1160] through the efforts of Mrs. Treadwin have succeeded in reproducing the ancient lace in the most wonderful manner. Fig. 158 is a lappet in the Brussels style shown in the International Exhibition of 1874. Mrs. Treadwin produced admirable specimens after the pillow-made lace of Genoa and Flanders, and also a reproduction of the Venetian point in relief. ”

“ The same pattern, with the same material, whether executed in Belgium, Saxony, Lille, Arras, Mirecourt, or Le Puy, will always bear the stamp of the place where it is made. It has never been possible to transfer any kind of manufacture from one city to another without there being a marked difference between the productions."—Aubry.
"After the French Revolution, when so many lace-makers fled to Belgium, Alost, Ypres, Bruges, Ghent, Menin, and Courtrai became the centres of this industry, and the lace produced in each town has a distinctive feature in the ground. ”

“ In Belgium the social and economic conditions are, as they have been in the past, more conducive and more favourable than elsewhere to lace-making at a sufficiently remunerative rate of wages. The production of hand-made laces in Belgium was in 1900 greater than that of France. The principal modern needle-made lace of Belgium is the “Point de Gaze”; “Duchesse” and Bruges laces are the chief pillow-made laces; whilst “Point Appliqué” and “Plat Appliqué” are frequently the results not only of combining needle-made and pillow work, but also of using them in conjunction with machine-made net. ”