Hi Alex: I tried to find an answer, too, but like you I had little luck. The French book “Dentelles Normandes: La Blonde de Caen” is a history book and has a lot of information about Blonde lace, but the emphasis is on business, not on technique, though there are a few places where they mention the grounds. What I found interesting was that when most of us read of Blonde lace, we tend to think of a point ground - ie, C-T-T-T ground lace, but that seems to be an error - from this book I learned that blonde lace can have any of several different grounds, including the ones that we see in the Ipswich lace book; Paris ground and a closed-pinned Alencon ground. This book has one or two photos of laces, labelled as 18th century, that do seem to have point ground - but they don’t say exactly when in the 18th century the laces were made (it could have been 1799, for example) and without a clear closeup I can’t say for sure that the laces do have point ground.
The other information I was able to find regards the history of Lille lace - “Leibenauer Point de Lille-Spitzen” by Mariet Haarmann and Erdmute Wesenberg. Lille lace uses point ground, and in the history section of that book they mention the rise of the industry coming at the beginning of the 19th century. Both books describe the difficulties resulting from the first machine was made to create a plain tulle net (1768), which used the C-T-T-T form. Embroidering machine-made tulle was much easier and faster than making lace from scratch, and the traditional laces suffered as a result. The “Lille” book starts at the beginning of the 19th century; apparently the price of linen rose by about 30% in 1803 and the book says that is why the lacemakers at Lille began using the C-T-T-T ground (called “fond clair” or “Point de Lille”). The do mention that “fond clair” had been used earlier, to make blonde and Chantilly lace. However, once again, they don’t give any dates. So, gathering this all together, it seems to me that what we call Point Ground was used in the 18th century to make blonde and chantilly lace, but it was just one of several different grounds that could be used to make blonde lace. (I don’t know about Chantilly). In the later years of the 18th century the demand for lace decreased with the rise of machine-made nets and the used of tulle and of gauze fabrics as a base for embroidered laces. In the early 1800s the price of linen thread also rose substantially and so it was more economical and faster to make point ground than the older grounds. At this point the Lille lace industry began, point ground lace became very fashionable, and over the next 50 years this type of lace spread to Beveren (Belgium), Buckinghamshire, Denmark, Switzerland, and several other countries. Best I can do. Now to get my day started. Adele West Vancouver, BC (west coast of Canada) > I saw the posting requesting information about the date point ground started > and have been waiting to see the response. Unfortunately there has net been > even one, I was hoping someone else would come up with something as I have > found no reference that actually gives a date and I am not an historian. It > appears to have developed in response to a change in fashion at the end of the > 18th century and start of the 19th century and into the Jane Austen era. The > French Revolution 1789 terminated much lacemaking in France and here the > aristocracy became twitchy in case it was catching and so less lace was worn > and when it became fashionable again the style changed. > > I do not have sensitive toes and would welcome comments any one with greater > historical knowledge. > > Blow the dust > > Alex - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
