RUSSIA.

249

RUSSIA.

Tn Russia, lace-making and embroidery go hand in hand, asin our early examples of embroidery, drawn-work and outworkcombined. Lace-making was not a distinct industry; the peasants,especially in Eastern Russia, made it in tlieir houses to decorate, inconjunction with embroidery, towels, table linen, shirts, and eventhe household linen, for which purpose it was purchased direct ofthe peasants by the inhabitants of the towns. All will have seenthe Russian towels in the International Exhibition of 1874, andhave admired their quaint design and bright colours, with thecurious line of red and blue thread running through the pattern ofthe lace. Darned netting and drawn work appear, as elsewhere, tohave been their earliest productions. The lace is loosely wroughton the pillowy the work simple, and requires few bobbins to executethe vermiculated pattern which is its characteristic (Fig. 106). Insome, silks of various colours are employed, in others the networkis formed of silver wire. The Eastern traditions are traceable inall the designs.

Peter the Great founded a manufactory of silk lace at Novo-gorod, which in the time of the Empress Elizabeth fell intodecay.

The principal sites of modern pillow-lace making are Torjok,in the province of Tver, and Jetetz, in that of Orel.

A manufactory of needle-made lace, called “ point de Moscou,”has been successfully established by a lady of that city. Inworkmanship it resembles the old rose point, but retaining indesign its Russian nationality.