Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-02-02
THE LACE INDUSTRY.
An Improvements Noted In I,asy-Msr
vejous Laces.

An Improvement Noted In Itasy-Msr-
vejous Laces.
Within late years the lace industry has
revived IN Venice, and not only in Venice,
but throughout all Italy. and is taught in
the public schools Of Rome. There are
two kinds of Venetian laces-that made
with needles and that made with bobbins,
only one person being engaged in the for
mer to every twelve persons engaged in
the latter. The laces made with the needle
are far more elegant and costly than those
made with the bobbin. The difference is
almost as marked as the difference between
a steel engraving and an engraving on
wood. One is an elevated and difficult art.
the other is an industrial one and serves
the ordinary uses.
The costliness of what is known as point
d Alencon lace is owing to the fact that it is
worked with the finest needles on parch-
ment patterns, the pieces afterwards united
by invisible seams. Twelve different hands
are required to produce single piece of
the lace. The design is engraved upon
copper plate, and is printed upon slips of
parchment ten inches long, each slip num-
bered in given order. The pattern Is
picked upon the parchment by the marker;
then the tracer traces the pattern of the
parchment with thread upon piece of
coarse linen attached TO the parchment.
The ground netting of the lace is then
worked in. and it thus passes from hand to
hand until completed, when it is cut from
the pattern with sharp razor.
A point d'Alencon shawl has been known
to sell for $4,000. One of the most r.ar-
velous laces owned by the Empress Eugene
was point de Brouxelles shawl. No less
than eighty experts were employed for one
year in making it, and it cost SO, 600 in
gold. 1t is in imitation of Royal Venice
point, IN its magnificent web, in its tracery
of the Renaissance period and it's devices
of antique igures and Moorish conceits.
Heavy ferns droop over the almost invisi-
bic mesh, there are groups of medallions
set in exquisite gariands of foliage, and the
borders are worked around concealed horse
hair, to give it greater stiffness, and to
offer striking contrast to the airy grace
of the Brussels of manufacture. Queen
Isabellas laces are valued at $1,000,000,
and represent all kinds, epochs and nation
alities; in her collection are Spanish man.
tilla wells worth $4,000, dresses in point
GAlencon and antique guipure valued at
SZOoUO each.
The handmade lace of France is princi-
pally produced at Caen, Bayeux, Chan
lilly and the surrounding districts and is
executed with remarkable ability. The
articles manufactured at Chantilly are or
dinarily very costly and only within the
command of the wealthy, but the Bayeux
silk lace closely resembles it. There are
no such assemblages of hand-lace workers
in Ireland or Scotland as at Caen and Bor-
deaux, where upwards of $4,000 females
are engaged in the occupation. The value
of the annual export of Saxony lace APP
proaches 100000 The workers in the
North of Ireland and Scotland have an
especial aptitude in producing difficult
work.
A modern improvement in the produe-
ton of lace is the introduction of shaded
tints in the flowers and patterns, giving
them the relief of a picture. The art has
been most successfully used in the laces
made in France. The effect is produced
by varying the application of the two
stitches used in making the fowers-the
first being the "toile' stitch which forms
the close stitch, and the other the grille
stitch employed in the more open part of
the pattern.-The Epoch.