in Europe by American collectors and donated to the Museum.

About Lace and Lacemaking

Lace is an ornamental openwork fabric created by looping, twisting, braiding, or knotting threads either by hand or by machine. The main categories of handmade lace are needle lace, bobbin lace, and decorated nets. Needle lace is created by making looped or knotted variations on the buttonhole stitch with a threaded needle on top of a pattern. Bobbin lace is created by twisting, crossing, or plaiting multiple threads wound on bobbins. It is also made on a pattern, sometimes called a pricking. Bobbin and needle techniques can be combined in the same piece of lace. Bobbin- and needle-made lace motifs can also be applied to handmade or machine-made nets.

During the 17th and 18th centuries the handmadelace industry played an important part in the economy of many European countries. Lacemaking was mostly a cottage industry with individual lace makers working in their homes for a lace dealer, who would supply the threads and patterns and collect the finished lace from the lace maker. Producing a handmade piece of lace is very time consuming, making the delicate fabric a very expensive and desirable fashion accessory. Members of royalty and the aristocracy were the customers for the fine laces, with both men and women competing to display the most exquisite lace on their fashionable clothes in the 17th and 18th centuries. However, by the end of the 18th century, men had stopped wearing lace, and fashion shifted to a much simpler, unadorned dress for women, so