ANTIQUE LACE.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9137, 22 June 1895, Page 3

ANTIQUE LACE.

Real antique laces, whether wrought with the needle or on the pillow, always have a special attraction for ladie3 of refined taste, much as machine imitations have been improved of late years. There is a peculiar charm in the feeling to possess and to wear those dainty hand-made fabrics, which bear witness to the taste, skill, and patience of generations of workers, who toiled for the | requirements of fashion in times gone by. As the opportunities to acquire fine and well-preserved specimens of old lace, become less fiequent, their value for the connoisseur increases, and what there comes in the market is eagerly taken np. This will undoubtedly be the case, says a London lady correspondent, with the collection of old laces, which is at present on view and for sale at Messrs Dickins and Jones', 232 Eegent street. Pillow laces of the Flemish type produced in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are especially well represented. There are trimming laces from Bruges, with their exquisitely fine and elaborate modes and fillings, old Brussels of the best period, Valenciennes in excellent preser* vation, and old Mechlin in the shape of a lappet, of beautiful design and remarkable workmanship. The bolder patterns of Flemish origin, known under the name of point de Flanders, point ds Paris, &c, are well shown in a flounce four yard 3 long and twenty-five inches wide, the disconnected floral design being joined by ornate brides. Two pieces of pillow-made point de Paris, ono fifteen yards the other eleven yards long, and about four inches wide, will be appreciated for trimming tea gowns. For the same purpose may serve a piece of old Spanish flat point, wrought with the needle, and some old Italian pillow cases of a bold pattern. Four or five pieces of modern Brussels point, amongst them a flounce, are well worth inspecting, and as a curiosity may be mentioned a specimen of darned netting of the sixteenth century.