Renaissance Lace

Folly made from Battenburg tape lace, a type of Renaissance lace. Folly made from Battenburg tape lace, a type of Renaissance lace.

Renaissance lace is a type of tape lace in which the overall outline of the design is made with machine made tape. The name refers to the rediscovery of antique Italian forms in the nineteenth century, and should not be confused with examples of lace from the Renaissance period.

In the nineteenth century and later, the basic design of Renaissance lace was copied onto glazed cloth, suede or paper. The tape was then tacked to the pattern and its various convolutions were followed. The interstices were filled with buttonhole stitch or other stitches.

Since the nineteenth century several names are used for this lace, such as point lace (not to be confused with needlepoint lace); tape lace (not to be confused with trail lace), mezzo punto (not to be confused with a seventeenth century form of lace with the same name). A trade name for a brand of tape was Honiton, which could cause confusion with Honiton (bobbin) lace.

There were four main types of renaissance lace: Battenburg tape lace, Branscombe lace, Brussels tape lace and Princess lace.

Source: EARNSHAW, Pat (1984). A Dictionary of Lace, Aylesbury: Shire Publications Ltd, p. 144.

Digital source of illustration (retrieved 29 June 2016).

GVE

Last modified on Saturday, 15 October 2016 19:56
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