and cannot be seized for debt.[303] The silk employed for the lace is of a superior quality. Near Barcelona is a silk-spinning manufactory, whose products are specially used for the blondes of the country. Spanish silk laces do not equal in workmanship those of Bayeux and Chantilly, either in the firmness of the ground or regularity of the pattern. The annual produce of this industry scarcely amounts to £80,000.[304]
Specimens of Barcelona white lace have been forwarded to us from Spain, bearing the dates of 1810, 1820, 1830 and 1840. Some have much resemblance to the fabric of Lille—clear hexagonal ground, with the pattern worked in one coarse thread; others are of a double ground, the designs flowers, bearing evidence of a Flemish origin.[305]
Spain sent to the International Exhibitions, together with her black and white mantillas, fanciful laces gaily embroidered in coloured silks and gold thread—an ancient fabric lately revived, but constantly mentioned in the inventories of the French Court of the seventeenth century, and also by the lady whose letters we have already quoted. When describing a visit to Donna Teresa de Toledo, who received her in bed, she writes: "She had several little pillows tied with ribbons and trimmed with broad fine lace. She had 'lasses' all of flowers of point de Spain in silk and gold, which looked very pretty."[306]
The finest specimen of Spanish work exhibited in 1862 was a mantilla of white blonde, the ground a light guipure, the pattern, wreaths of flowers supported by Cupids. In the official report on Lace and Embroidery at the International Exhibition of that year, we read that "the manufacture of black and white Spanish lace shows considerable progress since 1851, both in respect of design and fabrication. The black mantillas vary in value from £4 to £50, and upwards of 20,000 persons are said to be employed in their manufacture."
Before concluding our account of Spanish lace, we must allude to the "dentelles de Moresse," supposed by M. Francisque Michel[307] to be of Iberian origin, fabricated by the descendants of the Moors who remained in Spain and embraced Christianity. These points are named in the above-mentioned "Révolte des Passemens," where the author thus announces their arrival at the fair of St. Germain:—
"Il en vint que, le plus souvent.
On disoit venir du Levant;
Il en vint des bords de l'Ibère.
Il en vint d'arriver n'agueres
Des pays septentrionaux."
What these points were it would be difficult to state. In the inventory of Henry VIII. is marked down, "a purle of morisco work."
One of the pattern-books gives on its title-page—
"Dantique et Roboesque
En comprenant aussi Moresque."
A second speaks of "Moreschi et arabesche."[308] A third is entitled, "Un livre de moresque."[309] A fourth, "Un livre de feuillages entrelatz et ouvrages moresques."[310] All we can say on the subject is, that the making cloths of chequered lace formed for a time the favourite employment of Moorish maidens, and they are still to be purchased, yellow with age, in the African cities of Tangier and Tetuan. They may be distinguished from those worked by Christian fingers from the absence of all animals in the pattern, the representation of living creatures, either in painting, sculpture, or embroidery, being strictly forbidden by Mahommedan law.
Plate XXXII.
Jewish.—Made in Syria. The pattern is only modern Torchon, but the knotting stitch is their peculiar tradition. Same size.
Plate XXXIII.
Spanish.—The upper one is a copy of Italian lace clumsily made. The lower is probably a "dentelle de Moresse." Widths about 3½ in.
Photo by A. Dryden from Salviati & Co.'s Collection.
To face page 104.
PORTUGAL.
Point lace was held in high estimation in Portugal. There was no regular manufacture; it formed the amusement of the nuns and a few women who worked at their own houses. The sumptuary law of 1749 put an end to all luxury among the laity. Even those who exposed such wares as laces in the streets were ordered to quit the town.[311]
In 1729,[312] when Barbara, sister of Joseph, King of Portugal, at seventeen years of age, married Ferdinand, Prince of Spain, before quitting Lisbon, she repaired to the church of the Madre de Dios, on the Tagus, and there solemnly offered to the Virgin the jewels and a dress of the richest Portuguese point she had worn on the day of her espousals. This lace is described as most magnificent, and was for near a century exhibited under a glass case to admiring eyes, till, at the French occupation of the Peninsula, the Duchesse d'Abrantès, or one of the Imperial generals, is supposed to have made off with it.[313] When Lisbon arose from her ashes after the terrible earthquake of 1755, the Marquis de Pombal founded large manufactures of lace, which were carried on under his auspices. Wraxall, in his Memoirs, mentions having visited them.
The fine points in relief of Italy and Spain were the result of such time and labour as to render them too costly for moderate means. Hence they were extensively counterfeited. The principal scroll of the pattern was formed by means of tape or linen cut out and sewn on, and the reliefs were produced by cords fixed and overcast after the work was finished, thus substituting linen and cords for parts of the needlework. These counterfeit points were in France the occasion in 1669 of an ordinance.
Fig. 48.
Bobbin-lace.—(Madeira.)
The modern laces of Portugal and Madeira closely resemble those of Spain; the wider for flounces are of silk: much narrow lace is made after the fashion of Mechlin. Both Spain and Portugal enjoy a certain reputation for their imitation white Chantilly lace. A considerable quantity of coarse white lace, very effective in pattern, was formerly made in Lisbon and the environs;[314] this was chiefly exported, viâ Cadiz, to South America. Both black and white are extensively made in the peninsula of Peniche, north of Lisbon (Estremadura Province), and employ the whole female population. Children at four years of age are sent to the lace school, and are seated at almofadas (pillows) proportioned to their height, on which they soon learn to manage the bobbins, sometimes sixty dozen or more, with great dexterity.[315] The nuns of Odivales were, till the dissolution of the monasteries, famed for their lace fabricated of the fibres of the aloe.
Fig. 49.
Bobbin-lace.—(Brazil.)
Pillow-lace was made at Madeira at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The coarse kind, a species of dentelle torchon, served for trimming pillow-cases and sheets—"seaming lace," as it was called (Fig. 49). Sometimes the threads of the linen were drawn out after the manner of cut-work; but the manufacture had entirely ceased until 1850 (circ.), when it was re-established by Mrs. Bayman.[316]
Brazil makes a coarse narrow pillow-lace for home consumption.
The Republics of Central and South America show indications of lace-making, consisting chiefly of darned netting and drawn-work, the general characteristic of the lace of these countries. The lace-bordered handkerchiefs of Brazil, and the productions of Venezuela, with the borders of the linen trousers of the guachos, and the Creva lace of the blacks of the Province of Minas Geraes, are the finest specimens of drawn-work. The lace of Chili is of the old lozenge pattern, and men also appear to be employed on the work. In Paraguay there