Maltese Notes from Arachne
 

The catalogue written by Martine Bruggman for the large lace exhibit in
Bruges Belgium in 1997 says that lace was made in Malta in the 16th century
and that it resembled the lace being made in all the European centres. There
are many portraits to prove this.  I have also read that Maltese lace was
imported into China at that time.
I think that by the 18th century, lacemaking had more or less died out in
Malta as it had elsewhere and it was then that Lady Hamilton Chichester re-
introduced it in Malta in 1833 by bringing in lacemakers from Genoa  to teach
lacemaking.  Her  idea was that this could be an income producing work for
women there.  The most fashionable lace in Europe at the time was made of
black silk, but following fashion, eventually, also in creme coloured silk
and so it defines Maltese lace today.

The Bedfordshire characteristics date from this time and in fact, similar
lace made in England, using coton thread is called Bedforshire-Maltese.
Martine Bruggman says that the motif of the Maltese cross was inserted into
the lace as a sign to prove that it was Maltese made.  Of course, this motif
was also copied by lacemakers from other countries and similar lace was
produced in Le Puy (France), in Barcelona and in parts of Italy.

Elaine Merritt
- -

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Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 23:02:37 +0100
From: Jane Partridge
Subject: [lace] Inquiry on Maltese lace
 

From what I understood, the Maltese and Cluny laces were around before
Bedfordshire, which developed after 1850 from the Bucks laces, but
obviously influenced by Maltese, in order to speed up production in the
face of competition from machine lace.

For my Part 2 C&G research project, I looked into the designs of
decorative ironwork in railway architecture.  Bearing in mind that
architects of the 19th Century designed everything, not just the layout
of the bricks and mortar (or whatever) but down to the wallpaper and
carpets, too, when looking at 19th Century designs you need to look
right across the board, from lace to ironwork to carvings etc, in terms
of the types of design that were in use, rather than having such and
such a design for lace and another for, say, wallpaper.  Up until 1851
(the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace), UK designs had been swapping
back and forth between rococo and gothic, and there appeared to be
nothing in fashion then that resembled the Bedfordshire designs we know
now.  Geometric design had come over from France (eg the type used for
canopy supports on Great Western Railway stations - designed by Ismbard
Kingdom Brunel, whose mother was French), but although there were a lot
of floral designs they were of a very close, chintzy type.  The one
exception I found was on Platforms 4/5 of Nuneaton station, which had a
very definite Bedfordshire leaf resemblance, and this part of the
station, I think, was built in 1873 (Parts of the station were rebuilt
in ?1909 - I'm going on memory here! - but I think the Trent Valley
platforms are the original).  During the course of the research I went
through the designs in the replicas of the catalogues of both the 1851
(which I have) and 1862 (from the library) exhibitions.  It is easy to
see why Thomas Lester's designs took off as well as they did - they were
completely new, and different to what had gone before.  There is a
slight resemblance between Bedfordshire and Honiton, in that although
one is a continuous lace and the other non-continuous, there is an
almost raised, 3D effect given to the Bedfordshire designs which is
caused by the way that the threads join and leave the trails - which is
a different technique to that used in Maltese and Cluny.

I'm no expert, but everything I have so far come across has dated
Bedfordshire to post 1851, and the other two as being predecessors.
 

- --
Jane Partridge
His other woman is a computer - what chance have I got!

---

Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 15:28:20 -0700
From: "lacegarden"
Subject: [lace] Re: Maltese Lace

    Elaine and Jane have already given excellent answers to Robin's
question:

<<  I have no idea what Spanish silk is and I'm curious about the statement
that there is a strong Italian design influence.  It seems to me that the
 similarity is more to Beds than Italian, but then I'm not all that familiar
 with Italian laces other than Milanese and Venetian.>>

I'll just add a bit more about the Italian connection.

    In her book "Gozo Lace" Consiglia Azzopardi says:

        "With the arrival of the British on the island in the beginning of
the 19th century...Lady Hamilton Chichester, helped to re-establish the
craft by tracing it's original style worked in Genoa. The wheat ears, a
distinctive sign of Genoese lace, became a feature of Maltese lace...with
the addition of the eight pointed cross of Saint John..."

She goes on to say that the other distinguishing feature is that Maltese has
retained the influence of reticella (an Italian needle made lace) in it's
geometric design.

    In "A Dictionary of Lace" Pat Earnshaw says that Cluny is thought to
have been developed from examples of Genoese lace in the Musee de Cluny in
Paris.

    And Pamala Nottingham in "Bedfordshire Lace Making" and Barbara
Underwood in "Traditional Bedfordshire Lace" both
attribute the development of Beds to the influence of Maltese and Cluny
laces combined with the Bucks that was already well established in the
Midlands...with maybe a dash of Honiton.

    So, Maltese and Cluny both were based on Genoese, and Beds influenced by
Maltese and Cluny.

    But what was really driving the change to Maltese-Cluny-Beds type laces
in the mid 19th century was a change in fashion and the competition of
machine made laces.  The light muslins of the early 19th c. and the light
point ground laces that suited them so well gave way to the heavier styles
of the mid century.  And by mid century machines could make very good copies
of the point ground laces.  So Lady Chichester in Malta and the lace
manufacturers at Le Puy looked to the Genoese bobbin laces to develop a
style that was more suitable to the heavier fashions, a lace style that
wasn't currently being made by machine, and (though this certainly wasn't
true of the wonderful Lester-type floral Beds) a lace that could be more
quickly and easily made.

    I'm sure Elaine and the other members who will be making that wonderful
trip to Malta will be able to fill us in a bit more on the connection
between these laces.
 

Denise Liberio
Bellingham, Washington
lacegarden@home.com