38 
House & Garden 
THE ROMANCE OF POINT DE 
VENISE 
Few Laces Have Such a History or Offer so Alluring a Field for the 
Collector of Elegant Adornments 
GARDNER TEALL 
The difference in the handwork 
and the machine-made can be 
seen by comparing this example 
of modern Swiss imitation Point 
de Venise and the others 
{Left) Ivory Point or Punto ad 
Avorio, of which these are ex¬ 
amples, has a close stitching and 
low relief that gives the effect of 
carved ivory 
(Right) The patterns for Punto 
ad Avorio were often taken from 
the graceful scroll designs and 
floriations of the intarsia, or in¬ 
laid wood, workers 
T HE memories of a 
world of romance 
cling to the folds of 
old lace. In the history of 
textile ingenuity, where do 
we learn of any marvels 
comparable with these ex¬ 
quisite bits of filmy web, 
which scarcely could have 
been outmatched by Titan- 
ia’s fairy looms? And of 
all the laces Point de 
Venise must be crowned 
queen. 
Needlepoint lace had its 
origin in the 16th Century. 
The earliest lace of this 
character was made in Ven¬ 
ice. There is an old poem 
written by Agnolo Firenzulo 
about the year 1520, 
“Elegia sopra un Collar- 
etto,” in which “This collar 
sculptured by my lady in 
such reliefs as Arachne 
could ne’er excel” starts 
forth a description of a 
marvelous piece of Point de Venise. When 
Arachne dared to compete with Minerva in the 
art of needlework, the furious goddess trans¬ 
formed her into a spider condemned to weave 
webs. Only poor Arachne’s skill could, I 
think, have approached that of the early 
makers of Venetian Point. 
Characteristic 
buttonhol- 
in g can be 
seen worked 
in this \lth 
Century collar 
A Point de 
Venise speci¬ 
men of the nth 
Century 
Early Venetian Needlework 
A fragment of 
a nth Century 
Venetian piece 
of lace 
1491 and he did not spare 
mention of the laces of 
Venice. Records with early 
mention of Venetian needle¬ 
work abound, and works of 
the early masters of paint¬ 
ing depict various laces in 
the portraits they brushed. 
Then there were early Vene¬ 
tian and other Italian 
books on lace-making, rare 
tomes, indeed, and eagerly 
sought by the bibliophile, 
although a number of them 
have been re-issued in fac¬ 
simile. Among these treas¬ 
ured volumes may be noted 
those by Alessandro Paga- 
nino, 1527; Tagliente, 
1531; Nicolas d’ Aristotile 
dit Zoppino, 1530 and 
1537; Pagan Malle, 1546 
and 1550; Andrea Vavas- 
sore dit Guadagnini, 1546; 
Cesare Vecellio (nephew of 
the great Titian), 1590 and 
1600; Serena, 1594; J. 
Parasole Isabella Catanea, 
1600, and Lucrece Romaine, 1620—to mention 
by no means all of the authors of these early 
pattern-books for Venetian and other Italian 
lace-makers. Fortunate, indeed, it is we have 
them, since thus are preserved to us many 
hints and processes that otherwise we could 
have had no knowledge of. As their very 
genre naturally was not conducive to their 
preservation in libraries, having, as they did, 
hard workshop usage instead, these volumes 
have become excessively rare. 
Guipure bars 
connect the 
patterns in 
this example 
of nth Cen¬ 
tury work 
Franco, 1596; 
The Venetians have always been renowned 
for their needlecraft. In the mosaics of San 
Marco we see delineated needlework borders 
(fregio or frixatura) such as we find the 
tailors of Venice noting in their charges of 
the year 1219 as being twice as expensive 
as fur borders for robes. The English king. 
Richard the Third, wore at his coronation 
a robe with bands of gold and silk passe- 
ment which had been ordered from Venice. 
Savonarola preached in Florence against 
the vanities between the years 1484 and 
The Earliest Needlepoint 
The earliest of the needlepoint laces was 
that named Reticella, which evolved from 
cutwork and drawnwork, having at first a 
fabric base with buttonholed design held 
together at intervals by brides (buttonholed 
bars) and picots (loops or knots on the 
design’s edges). Later the cutwork gave 
