Point-plat applique is the name given to bobbin-made sprigs applied to machine-made net. Point Duchesse is also a Brussels lace. It is a bobbin (or pillow) lace of fine quality in which the sprigs (resembling Honiton) are connected by brides. Duchesse is a modern name. The lace resembles the old tape-gui pure of Flanders, made at Bruges in the 17th and 18th centuries and much used for cravats.
Mechlin.— Mechlin lace is ranked very high by connoisseurs. It is also called Point de Malines. Mechlin is made in one piece on a pillow with bobbins, the ground and the pattern being worked together with various fancy stitches. Its distinguishing feature is the cordon net, here a flat, silky thread which outlines the pattern and gives this lace almost the character of embroidery. The hexagonal mesh of the re seau is made of two threads twisted twice on four sides and four threads plaited three times on the other two sides. Sometimes the pat tern is "fond de neige," sometimes eoeil de per drix" and sometimes Fond Chant. Very early Mechlin has points d'Esprit (little square dots); but this is rare. The characteristic pattern is a sort of sunflower, rose, or pink, in full blos som and also with closing petals. The border is a shallow scallop, or it is slightly waved. The flower appears on the edge and the rest of the ground is sprinkled with square spots, quatrefoils, or leaflets. The flower is Flemish in character and the powderings (semis) are French in style. Open spaces, filled in with brides, that make a kind of lattice-work, are characteristic and give Mechlin a charming delicacy. A four-petaled flower often fills in the spaces in the scrolls. Mechlin was always a costly lace. "It is without question," writes Lefebure, "the prettiest of all pillow-laces.> Mechlin was in great request during the reign of Louis XV and the rococo style of ornament prevailed in its designs. To some extent, in their lightness and delicacy, they may be com pared with similar patterns upon contemporary glass from Saxony and Bohemia. Under Louis XVI, floral sprays and delicate interleavings were used in the patterns. No better lace can be found to assimilate with and adorn light textures, such as gauze and muslin. Our great-grandmothers showed appreciation of its appropriateness in using it to adorn their mountains of powdered hair. Mechlin was also made in Lierre, Turnhout and Antwerp.
Antwerp.—Antwerp was a great mart. Its distinctive lace had a vase, or pot of flowers, whence its name "Potten Kant." The blossoms are pinks, roses and sunflowers, and sometimes straggling branches are thrown from the flow ers. The ground varies: sometimes it is the six-pointed star; sometimes the partridge eye, etc.
Lille, the old capital of Flanders, was not a French town until after the Treaty of Aix-la Chapelle. Its lace resembles Mechlin. The chief difference is in the reseau, which is even lighter than that of Mechlin. It uses the Fond Chant (six-pointed star) and the Mond sim ple." Square dots, known as "points d'esprit," are also characteristic of Lille. The laces of Mons are also Flemish. Ypres, Alost, Coutrai and Bruges made lace of the Valenciennes type. Ghent, Binche, Liege and Saint Trond were also centres. In fact, for three centuries lace-making has been the chief industry of Flanders and of Belgium.
German Lace.— Germany claims the inven tion of lace. A tombstone in Annaberg reads: "Here lies Barbara Uttmann, died, 14 Jan. 1575, whose invention of lace in 1561 made her the benefactress of the Harz Mountains." Barbara Uttmann, wife of a rich mining overseer, how ever, learned to make pillow-lace from a Brea bant exile. She set up a workshop in Annaberg, which employed 30,000 workers. French refu gees in northern Germany (most of them from Alencon) improved lace-making there and Ital ians influenced work in Bavaria and Saxony; but German lace never acquired artistic repu tation outside of Germany.
English Lace.— England was never a great lace-making country; but the wealthy lords and ladies purchased lavishly of the fine laces of other countries. English flax was poor in com parison with that of the Continent, which may have been the reason that Point lace was little made. Tudor inventories mention the fine "outworks" and of Ital3r, and no one had more of them than Queen Elizabeth. She also patronized fine Flemish lace. In her reign Flemish refugees, flying from the persecutions of Alva and the "Spanish Fury," carried the lace-making industry to Devonshire. Honiton was their chief settlement, and from this time onward we read of "bone-lace" in old Eliza bethan literature, a name, of course, for bob bins (sometimes made of bone). In the sec ond half of the 17th century Flemish Point sup planted Venetian and French in the estimation of the English. When Cromwell's body lay in state it was draped with superb Flemish Point The enormous demand for Flemish Point occa sioned smuggling on such a vast scale that Par liament prohibited all importations of it. Then,
to supply their customers, merchants bought lace in Belgiuni and smuggled it into England where they sold it under the name of Point d'Angleterre, or English Point ; and under' this name it often was taken to France and sold. This lace was Brussels Point. Flemish lace continued popular for a long time in England. Defoe makes Robinson Crusoe send from Lis bon "some Flanders lace of good value as a present to the wife and daughter of his partner in the Brazils.* lloniton Pillow.— The most famous'Eng, lish lace is Honiton. It resembles, the old tape guipure of Flanders with open brides. The pat terns are large and are made first and then joined. The "Houiton Sprigs* were (and still are) famous, although the poppy, butterfly, acorn, etc, have nqt always been of fine de sign. Honiton resembles in some degree the "Duchesse Point* of Brassels. still keeps tq the Flemish type. Its value was determined by covering a• piece of lace, with shillings. Queen Victoria's wedding-dress-'was of Honiton and cost. DA° ($5,000). linniton lace-veils, worth hundreds of guineas, are treasured heirlooms in America and in England, England has had two centres of lace-making: Devonshire; and the South Midlands (Nottinghant,Bedford,and Buckingham). In the latter town lace was made after the style of Mechlin, Antwerp and Lille, always grounded andnever guipure (as in Honiton). Machinery for making lace was in vented its Nottingham. In 1.768 a workman, Hammond, conceived the idea of making a net tissue on a stocking-knitting machine. This was improved by Heathcote's bobbin net loom in 1809. The French then established marwfac tories in and Saint Pierre-des-Calais. In 1837 Jacquard invented his apparatus for fancy weaving; and of it to net-weaving machines produced tulles, broches, or flow ered nets. This gave a sever* blow to hand made lace. Buckingham and Nottingham have also been famous for their Yak lace, made from the wool of the Yak. The designs, fol. lowing those of Malta and; Genoa, are deco rated with wheat-ears and resemble the ancient "cut-work." Irish Lace began to be an industry in Ireland in 1829-30 in Limerick and Carrick macross. Limerick' is a tambour, i.e., threads embroidered on net, and Carrickmacross is dis tinguished by patterns cut in cambric and ap plied on a net ground. Beautiful, ornate stitches like latticework are also characteristic of Carricicrnacross. The style came from Italy: Vasari says it was invented by the painter Bot ticelli. Point lace, in the 'style of the 17th cen tury, is now made at Yonghal (County Cork), the chief centre, and also in Kenmare, Killar ney, Waterford, Kinsale and New Ross. Linen thread of the finest kind is used and the meshes are so small that the stitches are almost invis ible. Irish Point owes its existence to the failure of the potato crop in 1847. The Irish then tried to gain money by the Point Lace industry. It is a beautiful production and IS worked entirely by the needle.
Peasants make pillow lace in every country, differing in style and pattern in every place. In Many countries TOrchon is made. This is also called "beggars'*. lace. It has been imitated suc cessfully by machinery. The knotted lace known as Macrame, made in convents in the Riviera, is taught by the nuns to the peasants. It is a survival of the old knotted lace made in Spain and Italy in the 15th and 16th centnties. It tied with the fingers.. 'Macrame it much used in Genoa. The name is Arabic in origin.
latei,yearn' beau:Mall haidmade take has been pn:Anced in the United States in the tiewly established "lace-schools:* particularly after Italian methods. Some of these sehoolsiare un der wealthy patronage; others are connected
work Lade ris issade' in the Latin-Ameritati cotnr tries after the Spanish styles. In Fayal lace fashioned out of tile' fibre of the aloe. In the Philippines lace is Made from the fibre of the pineapple. ' The nsachine-lace industry of Europe it cen tred in Paris, Lyons, Calais, Saint Gall, Nqt tinghtint and Plauen: The importations of laces and embroideries (including nets, 'veiling" and.cortains) at the port of New York during the years' 1914 to 1917 were March. 191; $3,164,594; March 1915, $1,810,376; March 191 $2,306,61'8; March 1917, $1,388,262. ' , Bibliography.— Palliser, F. B., 'History of Lace> (London 1869) ; Seguin, J., (Dentellet histoire, description, fabrication> (Paris 1875)1 Jourdain, M.
Lace' (London 1909); Clifford, C. R. (The Lace Dictionary'(Nevr York 1913) • A: M. S.,