Studio: international art (27.1903)

Modern Austrian Lace

in the countries of their
birth. Matters continued
so till the sixties of the
nineteenth century, the lace
being Italian, French, or
Belgian in pattern, but
coarser in texture and
cheaper in price. With the
introduction of machinery
came machine-made nets
to replace the hand-made
ones. This was brought to
Bohemia, and a prosperous
trade arose in hand-made
application work on this
machine-made net, and did
much to oust real lace ; but,

on the other hand, pillow point lace designed by frau hrdlicka

1 executed by the imperial royal

lace was eagerly bought. school of lace-making, Vienna

But in the sixties there
was a sudden advance in

trade in Austria, an advance which made the ex- Austrian Museum ; and in '79 a special atelier was

hibition of '73 possible. This was followed by the arranged for students to design patterns for lace,

so-called Vienna Renaissance, which not only in- and peasant women were brought from the Austrian

fluenced manufactures in general, but also the lace Erzgebirge to teach girls how to carry out the

industry. Van der Null, the architect of the patterns. Now things are the other way about ;

Imperial Opera House, had a very enlightened the teachers are trained in the Imperial and Royal

pupil, one Storck, who in the course of time became Central Lace Schools in Vienna, of which Professor

first Professor of the Vienna Kunst Gewerbe Schule Hrdlicka is the head, and then sent to the Erzge-

(Arts and Crafts Schools), and later Director of the birge and other parts of the Austrian dominions,