16

HISTORY OP LACE.

Vinciolo dedicates his book to Louise de Vaudemont, theneglected queen of Henry III., whose portrait, with that of theking, is added to the later editions.

Various other pattern books for embroidery and other worksof the needle had already been published. The earliest bearinga date is one printed at Cologne in 1527. 15

These books are scarce; being designed for patterns, and tracedwith a metal style, or pricked through, many perished in theusing. They are much sought after by the collector as among theearly specimens of wood-block printing. We give therefore in theAppendix a list of those we find recorded, or of which we haveseen copies, observing that the greater number, though generallycomposed for one particular art, may be applied indifferently toany kind of ornamental w ork.

Cutwork was made in several manners. The first consisted inarranging a network of threads upon a small frame, crossing andinterlacing them into various complicated patterns. Beneath thisnetwork was gummed a piece of fine cloth, open like canvas, calledquintain, 16 from the town in Brittany where it was made. Then,with a needle, the network was sewn to the quintain by edginground those parts of the pattern that were to remain thick. Thelast operation was to cut away the superfluous cloth; hence thename of cutwork.

The author of the “ Consolation aux Dames,” 1620, in address-ing the ladies, thus specially alludes to the custom of working onquintain :—

“ Vous n’employrez les soil's et les matinsA faqonner vos grotesques quaintains,

O folle erreur—0 despenco excessive.”

Again, more simple was it to make the pattern detachedwithout any linen at all; threads, radiating at equal distancesfrom one common centre, served as a framework to others whichwere united to them in squares, triangles, rosettes, and othergeometric forms, worked over with button-hole stitch (point noue),forming in some parts open-work, in others heavy, compactembroidery. This was the first needle-made lace, for the finenessand beauty of which Venice excelled, but it was produced in all

15 See Appendix. French and English Tongues,” 1611.

16 Quintain—Quintin. French lnwne. “ 26 virges de Ranting pro sudariis proRandle Cotgrave, “ Dicticnarie of the ille 17/8.”— G. W. A. Charles If. 1683-1.