The Arts and Crafts of Older Spain, Volume 3 (of 3)Williams, Leonard
History
The Arts and Crafts of Older Spain, Volume 3 (of 3)
Williams, Leonard
Decorative arts -- Spain -- History
Plate xxxi. represents a small portion of a very original and beautiful
lace curtain, ten feet high, designed by Señor Aguado, and executed,
partly by Señorita Pilar Huguet (who superintended the work throughout),
and partly by seventeen of this lady's pupils, at the School of Arts and
Industries, Toledo. Although it is a hackneyed trope to declare that the
ornamentation of the Spanish-Moors, whether in ivory, wood or metal,
stone or plaster, was "delicate enough to seem of lacework," I believe
this to be the first occasion when such intricate and graceful motives
have been actually reproduced in lace. The result of the experiment has
proved surprisingly effective. The design is Spanish-Arabic in its
purest form, recalling various arabesques upon the walls of the
Alhambra, and includes thirty-three medallions which constitute the
principal decorative scheme, a hundred and forty-eight palms or
_alharacas_, and the Arabic expression "God is all-powerful," repeated
sixty-six times. The centre of the curtain consists in all of four
hundred and forty-eight pieces. The broad cenefa or bordering, which
runs right round the whole, contains, in Arabic, the following
inscription: "This curtain was begun in the _curso_ (course or series of
classes) of the year 1903-1904, and terminated in the _curso_ following,
(Art) School of Toledo." The style adopted throughout is that of
Brussels, known erroneously as English point, although upon a coarser
scale than is considered to be proper to this lace, the ground being
executed by the needle, or in point-work, and the rest by bobbins.
Plate xxxii. represents a covering for a fan, also executed by Señorita
Huguet, and also in the Brussels style. The design is a combination of
Mudejar motives, such as conventional foliage and geometrical bordering,
with a Spanish scutcheon and the double-headed eagle of the Emperor
Charles the Fifth.
At the present day, and largely owing to the initiative and the skilled
tuition of Señor Salvi, excellent lace is manufactured at Madrid,
including reproductions--which have been generally admired in Great
Britain and elsewhere--of the finest point or bobbin work of Malines,
Manchester, and Venice.
Appendices
APPENDIX A
THE LEGEND OF SAN MIGUEL IN EXCELSIS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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