[Illustration: JEWISH.--Made in Syria. The pattern is only modern Torchon,
but the knotting stitch is their peculiar tradition. Same size.]
PLATE XXXIII.
[Illustration: SPANISH.--The upper one is a copy of Italian lace clumsily
made. The lower is probably a "dentelle de Moresse." Widths about 3½ in.
Photo by A. Dryden from Salviati & Co.'s Collection.]
_To face page 104._
{105}PORTUGAL.
Point lace was held in high estimation in Portugal. There was no regular
manufacture; it formed the amusement of the nuns and a few women who worked
at their own houses. The sumptuary law of 1749 put an end to all luxury
among the laity. Even those who exposed such wares as laces in the streets
were ordered to quit the town.[311]
In 1729,[312] when Barbara, sister of Joseph, King of Portugal, at
seventeen years of age, married Ferdinand, Prince of Spain, before quitting
Lisbon, she repaired to the church of the Madre de Dios, on the Tagus, and
there solemnly offered to the Virgin the jewels and a dress of the richest
Portuguese point she had worn on the day of her espousals. This lace is
described as most magnificent, and was for near a century exhibited under a
glass case to admiring eyes, till, at the French occupation of the
Peninsula, the Duchesse d'Abrantès, or one of the Imperial generals, is
supposed to have made off with it.[313] When Lisbon arose from her ashes
after the terrible earthquake of 1755, the Marquis de Pombal founded large
manufactures of lace, which were carried on under his auspices. Wraxall, in
his _Memoirs_, mentions having visited them.
The fine points in relief of Italy and Spain were the result of such time
and labour as to render them too costly for moderate means. Hence they were
extensively counterfeited. The principal scroll of the pattern was formed
by means of tape or linen cut out and sewn on, and the reliefs were
produced by cords fixed and overcast after the work was finished, thus
substituting linen and cords for parts of {106}the needlework. These
counterfeit points were in France the occasion in 1669 of an ordinance.
[Illustration: Fig. 48.
BOBBIN-LACE.--(Madeira.)]
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