APPENDIX C. 



DESCRIPTION AND HISTORY OF LACE. 



By Dr, Thomas Wilson. 



Lace is an ornamental open-work fabric made with threads by sew- 

 ing, knotting, or twisting. It is not a textile, is not woven, is not 

 embroidery. Its principal difference from these, wherein consists its 

 peculiarity, is that it is made mesh or loop at a time, each one being 

 complete in itself and not made on any previously prepared founda- 

 tion, as in weaving or embroidery. There are many fabrics which have 

 intimate relation with lace and are called by that name wherein there 

 may be a mixture of both weaving and embroidery. There are other 

 fabrics which, made purely by lace-making process, still are not lace 

 because of a failure of their ornamental character. It is only by employ- 

 ing the word " ornament" in the definition that one can exclude the fine 

 sardine nets in use on the western coast of France. They are netted as 

 is lace ; they are not made by any previously prepared foundation ; they 

 are of fine linen thread, but they are utilitarian and are not ornamental, 

 and so are not lace. 



The making and use of thread and the art of weaving are of great age, 

 being well known in prehistoric times in the Neolithic and Bronze ages. 

 Examples of both have been found in the Neolithic stations of the Lake 

 Dwellers of Switzerland and Italy. The more advanced arts of sewing, 

 weaving, and embroidery were in a high state of development at the 

 beginning of all historic periods in almost every known country. The 

 Bible is full of descriptions of objects of high art in these regards. 

 Modern discoveries in Egypt and Assyria carry these arts much further 

 into antiquity. There is every reason to believe that all or most of these 

 arts antedated the culture manifested by written characters and by the 

 higher orders of architecture. 



Lace is, however, entirely a modern product. There were in early 

 times, to be sure, knitted fabrics, and some of tbern may have been 

 darned or embroidered in such way as to produce a fabric which now 

 passes as antique lace; but the art of lace making, according to the 

 foregoing definition, by sewing with the needle as in the manufacture 

 of point lace, or by twisting as in the manufacture of bobbin lace, is 

 not pretended by anyone to have existed earlier than the last half of the 



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