Lille lace trim

Status

Not on view

Label Text

This French Lille lace may have been used by Martha Parke Custis Peter, Martha Washington’s granddaughter, to trim a dress or a bonnet. Its airy, relatively light design with stylized floral motifs follows the early-nineteenth taste for relatively simple laces.

Datec. 1830

Geography Made - France

Medium/TechniqueLinen, bobbin lace

DimensionsOverall: 2 3/8 in. × 34 1/4 in. (6.03 cm × 87 cm)

Credit LinePurchase, 1956

Object numberW-2159/E

DescriptionLille white linen bobbin lace featuring two kinds of mesh, a stylized organic pattern, the use of gimp outlines and spots (“point d’esprit”), and the airy, open design characteristic of lace from this region. The piece primarily features Kat stitch mesh ground, which features large holes surrounded by six triangles, in a six-pointed-star formation. A small number of butterfly-like motifs spread out evenly across the middle ground. The border along the lower edge features curving branch-like shapes, with sprouts of leaves and clovers. They are lightly filled with clothwork. Beneath these branches, six-pointed stars float on simple Lille mesh ground, surrounded by ten points d’esprit. Characteristic features of Lille in this piece include gimp outlines on the motifs and picots which extend from the lace edge.
Published ReferencesElizabeth M. Kurella, A Guide to Lace and Linens (Norfolk, Virginia: Antique Trader Books, 1998), 164-165. (general reference)

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