Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-09-05
FASHIONS BESI5I GIFT
Lace Making Considered a
Royal Art.
ITS QUEENLY PATRONS
ITALY CLAIMS HONOR OF oRIGI-
MATING POINT LACE.
Peasant Girl in Initiating a Branch of
Coral Made First Vene-
tian Point.
ITS QUEENLY PATRONS

tian Point.
Written for The Evening Star
woman was pointed out at a recent
fashionable gathering as having "a queens
ransom in lace upon her person" The
habit of associating lace with royalty has
an ancient foundation, for the queens of all
ages have set the fashions in laces.
1t is within the province of royalty to set
fashions. but few queens in recent genera
tons have actually made the materials
from which fashions are created.
The world owes a debt of gratitude to
Matilda, the Norman queen, who made
tapestries which afterward became the
most famous in the world, but no modern
queen has initiated her example. Modern
queens have, however, lent their royal In
fuence In fostering and busted their royal
fingers in making lace in imitation of the
exquisite patterns created by some of their
most celebrated predecessors.
All the leading fashionable laces Of to-
day initiate as closely as possible designs
of surprising beauty which were traced in
ancient Greece, Italy and Spain by the
greatest artists of bygone ages, and
wrought in threads of fax, gold or silver
by queens and princesses.
European queens Wed with one another
for several centuries in the beauty of their
lace patterns, and in this art Catherine of
Aragon eXcelled to such extent that
when she became Queen Of England, wife
of Henry WILL she introduced the famous
Spanish stitch into England and created
vogue for 1t that has remained ever since
among makers of English lace.
In 1857 Katherine Parr, sixth wife of
Henry VIII, a queen noted for her tact,
learning, personal charm and ability as a
lace maker, applied the Spanish stitch to
French lace, creating marked improve
ment in It's beauty.
So highly honored was the art Of making
lace among the English nobility at this
period that in 1920 the legend craven upon
the tomb of Catherine Sloper in West
minister Abbey was: Exquisite az her
needle
Lace made by English women was highly
priced by papal legateS, and English kings
never forgot to include 1t in their gifts to
the pope.
limitations, Too.
Filet brode and guipure dart, which we
wear today, limitations of the opus
flatorum' of the thirteenth and sixteenth
centuries, and lace curtains recently i'm
ported bear in their design an imitation CT
some Anglo-Saxon lace made in 1248 A. D.
to fill large order Of Pope Innocent ", q
great patron Of lace.
The demands for lace designs of the
twelfth century had become SO great in
the sixteenth century that lace came to
have standard commercial value. In this
period Catherine de Medci one of the most
celebrated queens who ever ruled France,
became noted as patroness OF lace. She
not only improved Its designs with original
stitches, but introduced the famous Medici
collar in 1855, for which women have
blessed her, ever since,
Stormy as was her reign. she found time
to encourage all the greatest artists within
the scope of her broad influence to rival
each other in the production of lace pat
terms of such surprising beauty that none
in subsequent centuries has equaled them.
In the close of the fifteenth and the early
part of the sixteenth century Raphael and
his pupils. notably Giovanni of Udini, de-
signed at the order of the reigning pope and
the queens of the several kingdoms of Italy
some of the most superb lace patterns ever
produced. These royal ladies and the aris-
tocratic wives and daughters of the Doges
of Venice not only were famous for the lace
patterns they made, but each reignng house
had its own mark made in the lace. This
was, in the case of a queen or princess, the
insignia of her family, while other noble la
dies had for the most part, a narrow Dor
der above or around their lace pattern.
which proclaimed them of the house of Sa-
voy, of Piedmont, or like illustrious family.
Souvenir Squares.
According to fashion of the day when
bedspreads and wall draperies were made
of souvenir squares of lace noble women
made collections of squares whose borders
or central insignia practically formed a
monogram quilt. Some of these wonderful
works of art are still in existence.
In 1854, when Blanche of Montserrat
reigned in Piedmont and the noted Anne de
Beaujeu in France, both were celebrated for
their richness of dress and their encourage
ment of the art of lace making.
Catherine of Braganza, the Portuguese
wife of Charles Ii of England, carried her
knowledge of the fine lace patterns of Por-
tugal and Spain to add to English laces,
already enriched by stitches from Scandi-
navia, France Spain, Italy and Ireland.
Italy claims the honor of originating point
lace, but it is more likely to have been of
Byzantine origin. However, superb point lace
patterns of Venice and Italy, produced I'M
der royal patronage and initiated as far as
possible all over Europe, were manufa ctured
in quantities in 1869 and 1893, and these
laceS have never been surpassed in beauty.
Venetian point, the most beautiful in the
world, owes its origin to, a stitch invented
by Genoese peasant girl, who initiated in
her wedding veil the branching of a coral
brought to her by her sailor lover
In the sixteenth century the King of Siam
negotiated for an English wife who could
make lace The match was broken off and
to this day Siam has had to content itself
with embroidery.
She May Have.
One cannot fancy the gay Mary Tudor
demurely weaving the filmy threads of lace
such as busted the fingers of so many royal
ladies about her, but perhaps she followed
the fashion of her day.
In recent times Queen Margharita of Italy
and Queen Victoria of England have been
the two greatest royal patronesses of the
art of lacemaking. The former established
lace schools in Italy and revived the almost
lost art of making rare lace designs, per-
sonally experimenting and encouraging the
work. The latter fostered the lace industry
in England. Queen Margharfta is probably
the only sovereign who has written book
upon the subject of lace =
1t has been said that Queen Victoria and
Queen Alexandra learned how to make
honiton lace. At all events, Queen Vic
toria personally superintendent the teaching
of lace patterns in stitches, an art which
had fallen into decadence to the peasantry
in Devonshire and the surrounding counties.
Under her care the lacemaking industry
began to flourish in those counties Cele-
brated patterns of old lace were revived,
and Devonshire lace Is one Of the most
exquisite varieties known to modern times
The wedding wells of most of the oueen's