172

HISTORY OF LACE.

“ aunage,” or border lace, for the layette. The making of pointd’Alenpon being so slow, it was impossible ever to execute it “ toorder ” for this occasion.

Great as is the beauty of the workmanship -of Alenfon, it w asnever able to compete with Brussels in one respect: its designswere seldom copied from nature, while the fabric of Brabant sentforth roses and honeysuckles of a correctness worthy of a Butchpainter.

Alenfon point is now- successfully made at Bayeux, where themanufacture was introduced, in 1855, by M. Auguste Lefebure, amanufacturer of that town. Departing from the old custom ofassigning to each lace-maker a special branch of the work, thelace is here executed through all its stages by the same worker.Perhaps the finest example of point d’Alenfon, exhibited in 1867,was the produce of Bayeux; a dress consisting of two flounces, thepattern, flowers, and foliage of most artistic and harmoniousdesign, relieved by the new introduction of shaded tints, givingto the lace the relief of a picture. 20 The ground (reseau) wasworked with the greatest smoothness and regularity, one of thegreat technical difficulties when such small pieces have to be joinedtogether. The price of the dress was 85,000 francs, 34001. Ittook forty women seven years to complete.

20 This effect is produced in the pillow-luce by varying the application of the twostitches used in making the flowers (seej). 20), the ‘'toile',” which forms theclose tissue, aud the “grille,” the more

open part of the pattern; iu the needle]K?int by threads of different coarseness.The system has been adopted iu France,Belgium, and England, but with mostsuccess in France.