Pillow-lace was made at Madeira at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The coarse kind, a species of _dentelle torchon_, served for trimming pillow-cases and sheets--"seaming lace," as it was called (Fig. 49). Sometimes the threads of the linen were drawn out after the manner of cut-work; but the manufacture had entirely ceased until 1850 (circ.), when it was re-established by Mrs. Bayman.[316]
{ 108}Brazil makes a coarse narrow pillow-lace for home consumption.
The Republics of Central and South America show indications of lace-making, consisting chiefly of darned netting and drawn-work, the general characteristic of the lace of these countries. The lace-bordered handkerchiefs of Brazil, and the productions of Venezuela, with the borders of the linen trousers of the guachos, and the Creva lace of the blacks of the Province of Minas Geraes, are the finest specimens of drawn-work. The lace of Chili is of the old lozenge pattern, and men also appear to be employed on the work. In Paraguay there are two sorts of work--Nanduti or "toile d'arraignée," made in silk or thread by a needle on a cardboard pattern by the copper-coloured natives as an industry; also embroidery and drawn thread-work on linen, of which there are specimens in the Victoria and Albert Museum--all traditions of the European missionaries and traders who first colonised the country.
[Illustration: SPANISH.--Pillow made nineteenth century. Réseau of two threads twisted and crossed. Slightly reduced.]
[Illustration: PARAGUAY. "NANDUTI."--End of nineteenth century. Reduced rather over half.
Photos by A. Dryden from private collections.]
"For lace, let Flanders bear away the belle." --Sir C. Hanbury Williams.
"In French embroidery and in Flanders lace I'll spend the income of a treasurer's place." --_The Man of Taste_, Rev. W. Bramstone.
Flanders and Italy together dispute the invention of lace. In many towns of the Low Countries are pictures of the fifteenth century, in which are portrayed personages adorned with lace,[317] and Baron Reiffenberg, a Belgian writer, asserts that lace cornettes, or caps, were worn in that country as early as the fourteenth century. As evidence for the early origin of pillow-lace in the Low Countries, Baron Reiffenberg mentions an altar-piece, attributed to Quentin Matsys (in a side chapel of the choir of St. Peter's, at Louvain), in which a girl is represented making lace with bobbins on a pillow with a drawer, similar to that now in use.[318] There exists a series of engravings after Martin de Vos (1580-85), giving the occupations of the seven ages of life: in the third,[319] assigned to _âge mûr_, is seen a girl, sitting with a pillow on her knees, making lace (Fig. 50). The occupation must have been then common, or the artist would scarcely have chosen it to characterise the habits of his country.