Several members of the Barony are excited by bobbin-lace at the moment, so I'm compiling a the resources we've found most useful here.
Digital Archive of Documents Related to Lace
A fabulous collection of primary and secondary resources: facsimiles of renaissance pattern books, scans of 19th C histories of lace, modern articles on lace and lace making, etc.
Especially useful are:
- Le Pompe (mid 16thC lace pattern book).
- Parasole (1616 lace pattern book, including 7 pages of bobbin-lace patterns)
- Palliser (19th C history of lace, with rather good footnotes)
Both volumes of Le Pompe are available in facsimile here.
Powerhouse Museum
The Powerhouse Museum has a fabulous lace study room, well worth a visit if you find yourself in Sydney. They have images online of only a few renaissance laces, but the resolution is fantastic: you can often trace the path of every thread.
Lace study centre - resources about lace (e.g. an excellent glossary of lace terms).
Search online collections - images of renaissance lace.
- Bobbin and needle lace border, linen, late 16th C. H3771 (cutwork band, bobbin lace points on one side, narrow bobbin-lace insertion on the other)
- Bobbin and needle lace border, linen-silk, 1575-1625 (very deep, cutwork band with bobbin-lace points)
- Bobbin lace border, linen, 1600-1650 (shallow scallops with leaf tallies)
- Bobbin lace border, early 17th C (slightly pointed scallops)
- Bobbin lace border, linen-cotton, early 17th C (deep points, many tallies, probably Genoese)
- Bobbin lace border, linen, early 17th C (very deep scallops)
- Bobbin and needle-lace border, probably 16thC, maybe later, hemp/cotton
- Lace cloth. Various techniques, from several periods.
Metropolitan Museum
Excellent search, lots of images - more 200 results for "bobbin lace, 1400-1600". If there are apparently-similar alternate images, often the last one will be at much higher resolution.
Searching for "lace" is effective, but misses some complete garments that have lace on them. It's worth trying "costume" too, for the body linens.
LACMA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Good collection of early textiles, with lots of photos online.
Pieces including bobbin lace from before c. 1630:
- Border fragment (early 17thC)
- Buratto with bobbin lace border (early 17thC)
- Cover, c. 1600
- Genoese lace, c. 1600
- 16th C insertion
- Pillow case (16thC)
- Metallic lace, Spanish, early 17thC
- Linen tape lace
- Needle lace with attached tassels in silk
- English chalice-veil with metallic lace border
V&A
A seach for "lace" before 1640 brings up about 12 items; with good resolution photos.
Art Institute of Chicago
- Man's cap with metallic lace edge
- Gloves with lace trim
- Cover with bobbin-lace edging
- Genoese scalloped lace
- Deep Genoese scalloped lace
- Another Genoese scalloped lace
- Deep insertion with pointed border, could be broken down into several useable designs
- Cotton lace, looks Genoese
- Mid-16thC metallic lace
- Needle-lace with 17thC bobbin-lace border
- Border from a table-cover with bobbin lace edging
- Genoese Scallops
- Very similar Genoese scallops
- And more Genoese scallops, in the same style, a little wider
- Border from pillow cover, edged in bobbin lace
- Border made into a collar, needle and bobbin lace. See here for my reconstruction of the bobbin-lace.
- Border made into collar, with bobbin lace edging
- Cover edged in red bobbin lace
- Cover edged in polychrome bobbin lace
- Cover, insert and edging of bobbin lace
- Cover, edged in narrow red bobbin lace
- Cover with linen and silk lace edging
- Yet more probably-Genoese lace
- Large square fragment - bobbin lace? - with bobbin lace edging
- Handerchief with needle lace edge and bobbin lace points
- Drawn-work border with bobbin lace insertion
- Bobbin lace with human figures
- Needle lace with bobbin-lace points
- Needle lace with bobbin-lace edges
- More needle-lace with bobbin-lace points
- Pair of crescent-shaped cuffs (needle-lace, not bobbin-lace, but the shape is interesting; I'm not entirely convinced by the date - maybe 1625, not 1525?)
- Panel made from six joined insertions, with border
- Bobbin lace insertion
- Venetian tape-lace points
- Border from a cover, with polychrome bobbin lace points
Cleveland Museum of Art:
Lots of lace; some images, reasonable resolution. The search results are not easy to sort by date - so once I know what I'm looking for, I find it quickest to search by accession number.
Pieces of with images of bobbin-lace from before about 1630:
- Cutwork and bobbin-lace cloth, 16th C.Accession No.: 1923.995
- Reticella and bobbin-lace insertion, 16th C. Accession No.: 1920.1242, also 1920.1241
- Genoese collar in point and bobbin lace, 16thC. Accession No.: 1920.1240
- Cutwork and bobbin-lace altar-frontal, 16thC.Accession No.: 1920.1171
- Table cloth with lace, 16thC. Accession No.: 1920.1170
- Table cover. Accession No.: 1920.1167
- Burato with bobbin-lace edging. Accession No.: 1920.112
- Bendiction veil with red-and-white lace edging. Accession No.: 1920.1156
- Buratto with lace edging, blue and white.Accession No.: 1920.1129 (I'd like to try this one)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Good collection, reasonable search, though the "order by date" function didn't work when I last tried it.
Katherina's lace patterns, and other lace stuff.