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Comment by Starlynn Marie Burnett on September 26, 2021 at 11:47am

Thanks Cindy!  Ok...interesting!  and it goes along with the 1800's the lace dealer told me as the time period.  I wrote she said Victorian Tuscan, but maybe she said Venetian Tuscan?  I'll look into it more.  This has been fun!  Thanks everyone :)

Comment by Cindy Tiger on September 25, 2021 at 4:22pm

Sorry I am late to the party on this one. Something has been tickling the back of my mind about this one and it took me a while to track it down. The non-cloth parts of the lace look like handmade fake Gros Point to me. In Needlemade Laces by Pat Earnshaw she says in the late 1800s quick Venetian laces were made by weaving or darning the solid parts of the patterns and overcasting cording on the raised parts. No buttonhole stitches were used, and the end result looked like Gros Point from a distance. The square ground stitch in this example looks like the stitches were wrapped. You can see some cording sticking out of the heavily wrapped parts of the design in places. This may be what this is, handmade fake Venetian Point. Earnsahw says it is sometimes known as punto a cordello.

Comment by Starlynn Marie Burnett on September 21, 2021 at 11:14am

Devon, just saw your last question...No, she didn't seem to know a lot now that I've gotten some feedback here.  She said the pink one was "1800's Victorian Tuscan" and the other "spiderwork lace".  She never mentioned machine made or chemical lace in the description. 

Comment by Starlynn Marie Burnett on September 21, 2021 at 11:05am

Wow!  Thank you Devon...so interesting!  I will look into it.  I think it is fascinating to watch these machines (any lace making machine) as it's hard to wrap my head around how someone figured out how to make a machine that can create lace in the first place.  I appreciate all the information you took time to post!!  Star

Comment by Devon Thein on September 21, 2021 at 6:45am

Just to clarify. I am talking about the piece of lace with the pink fabric when I talk about the Hand Embroidery Machine. The other piece appears to be chemical lace made on the more common Schiffli machine that uses two threads. St Gallen was also a huge center for Schiffli lace. In fact that is what it is really known for. The fact that the Ikle family collected all this historical handmade lace assisted them in devising lace patterns from all eras. So the piece that is not with the pink fabric is clearly supposed to look like reticella from the late 16th or early 17th century. But of course it could easily be made at any time. Did this dealer actually seem as though they knew a lot about machine made lace? 

Comment by Devon Thein on September 21, 2021 at 6:33am

I think this is a case of chemical lace made with the Hand Embroidery Machine. These areas that look like needle weaving are characteristic of that machine. It was one of my most satisfying moments when this summer at the online UnCon 2.0 we arranged for the presenter from the Textilmuseum in St. Gallen, Switzerland to show a demonstration of this remarkable machine. The machine takes a needle through the cloth and then brings the same needle back through the cloth duplicating the actions in hand embroidery. A normal sewing/ embroidery machine has two threads, one on top and one on the bottom. I don’t know how widespread this machine was. Perhaps one could posit an origin for the piece in Switzerland. According to the website at the Textilmuseum the 1890s represented the time when the machine was used the most. Search YouTube for Handstickmaschine im Textilmuseum St Gallen to see this remarkable machine being operated. Starlynn might find it fun to research the St Gallen Textilmuseum and the Swiss machine lace industry as part of learning about her piece. It is really interesting. In fact the Textilmuseum is going to have a lace exhibit in New York at the Bard Graduate Center opening  in Sept 2022. It will include many of the notable pieces of hand made lace collected by the Ikle family to serve as inspiration for machine made lace. Some of the most interesting pieces of historical handmade lace are in this collection. There will also be a part of the exhibit devoted to the machine made lace and it’s use in fashion.

Comment by Starlynn Marie Burnett on September 21, 2021 at 12:06am

Thank you Lorelei, here are photos of the back of the piece.  I appreciate your input

Star

Comment by Lorelei Halley Administrator on September 14, 2021 at 7:36pm

I think Nancy is correct, but I would need to see the back to be sure. The fact that the pink cloth is still part of the lace shows that this is an embroidered lace, not a free standing lace. Anc chemical lace IS embroidery on synthetic fabric which is supposed to be dissolved leaving the cotton embroidery as the final product. But the very smooth overcasting of some motifs, and the woven rectangles are unusual for chemical lace. That makes me hesitate about whiat this is.. The motif shapes seem to me to fit better with early 20th century than with late 19th c.

Comment by Starlynn Marie Burnett on September 11, 2021 at 10:42pm

No worries Nancy!  I appreciate your reply...thank you:)

Star

Comment by Nancy A. Neff on September 11, 2021 at 3:25pm

I'm not that good at dating machine lace. All I would say is probably European because of the intricacy of the design, and mid- to late 19th C is reasonable, based on the small scale of the motifs, but I wouldn't argue if someone has more criteria for dates or origin. I've never heard of "Victorian Tuscan" -- maybe that's a fancy way of saying it's Italian. It's certainly reminiscent of some early Italian lace so that's a reasonable guess I suppose. Sorry I can't really be definite. Maybe Lorelei will chime in -- I think she'll know more about it.

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