was made in several manners. The first consisted in arranging a network of threads upon a small frame, crossing and interlacing them into various complicated patterns. Beneath this network was gummed a piece of fine cloth, called quintain,[60] from the town in Brittany where it was made. Then, with a needle, the network was sewn to the quintain by edging round those parts of the pattern that were to remain thick. The last operation was to cut away the superfluous cloth; hence the name of cut-work.
Fig. 3.
Lacis.—(Vinciolo. Edition 1588.)
Ce Pelican contient en longueur 70 mailles et en hauteur 65.
The author of the Consolations aux Dames, 1620, in addressing the ladies, thus specially alludes to the custom of working on quintain:—
"Vous n'employiez les soirs et les matins
A façonner vos grotesques quaintains,
O folle erreur—O despence excessive."
Again, the pattern was made without any linen at all; threads, radiating at equal distances from one common centre, served as a framework to others which were united to them in squares, triangles, rosettes, and other geometric forms, worked over with button-hole stitch (point noué), forming in some parts open-work, in others a heavy compact embroidery. In this class may be placed the old conventual cut-work of Italy, generally termed Greek lace, and that of extraordinary fineness and beauty which is assigned to Venice. Distinct from all these geometric combinations was the lacis[61] of the sixteenth century, done on a network ground (réseau), identical with the opus araneum or spider-work of continental writers, the "darned netting" or modern filet brodé à reprises of the French embroiderers.
The ground consisted of a network of square meshes, on which was worked the pattern, sometimes cut out of linen and appliqué,[62] but more usually darned with stitches like tapestry. This darning-work was easy of execution, and the stitches being regulated by counting the meshes,[63] effective geometric patterns could be produced. Altar-cloths, baptismal napkins, as well as bed coverlets and table-cloths, were decorated with these squares of net embroidery. In the Victoria and Albert Museum there are several gracefully-designed borders to silk table-covers in this work, made both of white and coloured threads, and of silk of various shades. The ground, as we learn from a poem on lacis, affixed to the pattern-book of "Milour Mignerak,"[64] was made by beginning a single stitch, and increasing a stitch on each side until the required size was obtained. If a strip or long border was to be made, the netting was continued to its prescribed length, and then finished off by reducing a stitch on each side till it was decreased to one, as garden nets are made at the present day.
This plain netted ground was called réseau, rézel, rézeuil,[65] and was much used for bed-curtains, vallances, etc.
In the inventory of Mary Stuart, made at Fotheringay,[66] we find, "Le lict d'ouvrage à rezel"; and again, under the care of Jane Kennethee, the "Furniture of a bedd of network and Holland intermixed, not yet finished."
When the réseau was decorated with a pattern, it was termed lacis, or darned netting, the Italian punto ricamato a maglia quadra, and, combined with point-coupé, was much used for bed-furniture. It appears to have been much employed for church-work,[67] for the sacred emblems. The Lamb and the Pelican are frequently represented.[68]
In the inventory of Sir John Foskewe (modern Fortescue), Knight, time of Henry VIII., we find in the hall, "A hanging of green saye, bordered with darning."
Queen Mary Stuart, previous to the birth of James I. (1560), made a will, which still exists,[69] with annotations in her own handwriting. After disposing of her jewels and objects of value, she concludes by bequeathing "tous mes ouvrages masches et collets aux 4 Maries, à Jean Stuart, et Marie Sunderland, et toutes les filles";—"masches,"[70] with punti a maglia, being among the numerous terms applied to this species of work.
These "ouvrages masches" were doubtless the work of Queen Mary and her ladies. She had learned the art at the French court, where her sister-in-law, Reine Margot, herself also a prisoner for many life-long years, appears to have occupied herself in the same manner, for we find in her accounts,[71] "Pour des moulles et esguilles pour faire rezeuil la somme de iiii. L. tourn." And again, "Pour avoir monté une fraize neufve de reseul la somme de X. sols tourn."
Catherine de Médicis had a bed draped with squares of reseuil or lacis, and it is recorded that "the girls and servants of her household consumed much time in making squares of reseuil." The inventory of her property and goods includes a coffer containing three hundred and eighty-one of such squares unmounted, whilst in another were found five hundred and thirty-eight squares, some worked with rosettes or with blossoms, and others with nosegays.[72]
Though the work of Milour Mignerak, already quoted, is dedicated to the Trés-Chrestienne Reine de France et de Navarre, Marie de Médicis, and bears her cipher and arms, yet in the decorated frontispiece is a cushion with a piece of lacis in progress, the pattern a daisy looking at the sun, the favourite impresa of her predecessor, the divorced Marguerite, now, by royal ordinance, "Marguerite Reine, Duchesse de Valois." (Fig. 4.)
Fig. 5.
Elizabethan Sampler.
To face page 22.
These pattern-books being high in price and difficult to procure, teachers of the art soon caused the various patterns to be reproduced in "samcloths,"[73] as samplars were then termed, and young ladies worked at them diligently as a proof of their competency in the arts of cut-work, lacis and réseuil, much as a dame-school child did her A B C in the country villages some years ago. Proud mothers caused these chefs-d'œuvre of their children to be framed and glazed; hence many have come down to us hoarded up in old families uninjured at the present time. (Fig. 5.)
A most important specimen of lacis was exhibited at the Art International Exhibition of 1874, by Mrs. Hailstone, of Walton Hall, an altar frontal 14 feet by 4 feet, executed in point conté, representing eight scenes from the Passion of Christ, in all fifty-six figures, surrounded by Latin inscriptions. It is assumed to be of English workmanship.
Fig. 4.
Impresa of Queen Margaret of Navarre in Lacis.—(Mignerak.)
Some curious pieces of ancient lacis were also exhibited (circ. 1866) at the Museum of South Kensington by Dr. Bock, of Bonn. Among others, two specimens of coloured silk network, the one ornamented with small embroidered shields and crosses (Fig. 6), the other with the mediæval gammadion pattern (Fig. 7). In the same collection was a towel or altar-cloth of ancient German work—a coarse net ground, worked over with the lozenge pattern.[74]
But most artistic of all was a large ecclesiastical piece, some three yards in length. The design portrays the Apostles, with angels and saints. These two last-mentioned objects are of the sixteenth century.
When used for altar-cloths, bed-curtains, or coverlets, to produce a greater effect it was the custom to alternate the lacis with squares of plain linen.
"An apron set with many a dice
Of needlework sae rare,
Wove by nae hand, as ye may guess,
Save that of Fairly fair."
Ballad