The Exhibition of Art-Industry in Paris, 1855 (London, 1855)

OF INDUSTRIAL ART.

LACE AND EMBROIDERY.

France, Belgium, and Switzerland, are each thoroughly repre-
sented in the specialite of lace, and the reputation of all three for
artistic excellence is worthily sustained. The characteristics of
English and Irish laces too are fairly and successfully illustrated,
and the manufacturers of Nottingham have certainly entered the
field boldly and challenged all competitors in machine lace, especially
on the important point of price. Artistically these Nottingham
productions show an immense advance upon those displayed in
the Great Exhibition of 1851. The designs generally are more
purely textile, and bear evidence of an increasing intelligence in
design, as also of an advanced perception of the fitness and adapta-
bility of a certain class of natural forms, when wrought out upon a
distinct geometric basis. It is, therefore, with no little satisfaction
that we hail this recognition of the value of a recurrence to first
principles, the results now produced being an earnest of future
progress in the same direction. It is quite clear that English
designers possessing a technical knowledge of the industries upon
which their Art-knowledge is to be exercised, and resolved to
think for themselves, need not look to the practice of their conti-
nental competitors for modes of treatment; inasmuch as by starting
from their own wants, or rather those of the consumer, they may,
by earnestly working out the well-understood conditions of the
special manufacture upon which they are engaged, produce
originality without rushing into the whims and vagaries to which
the mere copyist is ever in danger of being led by the idiosyncracies
of others whose wants may be totally different to those which
it is his function to supply. Seeing then this healthy tendency
in the lace designs of Nottingham, we are at a loss to understand
what could have induced the perpetration of such an absurdity as
the lace table-cover, on which the " Descent from the Cross " has
been so hideously libelled, or the outrageous attempt at an
illustration of the Anglo-French Alliance, in a series of wooden-
looking figures. When will the people who waste their time,
throw away their money, and misuse good machinery only to
render themselves ridiculous, learn that the human figure is not a
proper subject for imitation in a material like lace. Here we
have a fabric, the chief characteristic of which is its lightness
and semi-transparency, the use of which is chiefly to cover more
solid fabrics, and the ornamentation of which can only be seen to
advantage when placed between the eye of the spectator and some
other object, or as in the case of lace curtains, between the eye
and the light. Yet in spite of these facts, manufacturers persist
in the introduction of forms totally contradictory to the very
nature of the material and the use of the fabric. The Swiss
have been and still are open to the same charge of neglecting
the common sense principles which ought to guide the lace manu-
facturer in the selection of the forms with which to decorate
his productions. In the Great Exhibition of 1851, the Chalet
backed by mountains, with foreground and mid-distances of
firs and rocks, was a favourite subject, and probably was then
thought most suited to the English taste: the Swiss having a
keen eye to the markets of Britain. In the present Exhibition
this Chalet type is comparatively abandoned, probably because
unsuited to French taste ; but it peeps out here and there; for
one of the best contributors of Swiss lace curtains exhibits the
interior of a hot-house of Crystal Palace-like design and
dimensions, plants, fountains, and perspective included ; as also
a hunting scene, horses, dogs, trees, and all the et-eeteras of the
chase ! We have decried and shall continue to decry all such
absurdities, however well executed ; indeed the better they are
executed, the more offensive they become. Our own manu-
facturers will, we are sure, now that they have fairly commenced
to work from a sound basis, repudiate these puerilities, and
above all things, we trust that no Englishman or English woman,
having the least pretension to a taste for Art, will buy such
nonsense. The Glasgow harness curtains show a healthy re-action
on this point, and the designs of those exhibited are far more
legitimately textile than usual. In short, the Glasgow display in
this specialite is highly satisfactory, and may probably call the
attention of French designers to the fact that ugliness and clumsi-
ness do not always constitute the merits of a design as suited to
the Scotch market.

The machine laces of I St. Quentin, especially in curtains,
certainly rival [those of Nottingham in excellence; but as no
prices are given, it is impossible to say how far the two may compete
in the same materials, and of the commercial results likely to
follow from their being thus, as it were, brought " face to face."
It is quite clear, however, that the curtains exhibited by Messrs.
Heymann and Alexander of Nottingham are remarkable for their
excellence and lowness of price. Unlike the French examples,
which are placed in glass cases out of reach, and consequently not
open to minute examination, these articles are displayed in a very
simple, effective, and, to our mind, tasteful, because practical,
manner: being suspended from the girdera, and looped to the

columns which support the roof of the avenue running in front
of the gallery of the English department in the Palais de l'lndustrie.
They are thus seen in much the same position as when in actual
use, whilst they challenge attention and close examination. The
price is affixed to each pair of curtains, and its lowness—fifteen
francs per pair being that of the majority—must greatly astonish
our continental friends. No possible exception can be taken,
either to the character of the manufacture, or the general ex-
cellence and simplicity of design in these articles, and their display
is an act of justice to an important industry, and a commercial
triumph for Nottingham. The Velvet and Simla lace, for the
production of which the patentees, Messrs. Ball, Dunnicliffe & Co.,
of Nottingham, received the only Council medal awarded for lace
in 1851, is illustrated in all its varied uses as applied to the orna-
mentation of dresses, shawls, &c.; and, though no longer a novelty
in England, tends to sustain the reputation of the manufacturers.
In machine-made lace and bobbin-net the manufacturers of
Calais, Cambray. Lille, and Lyons, together with St. Quentin, as
already mentioned, show that whilst they still continue to
worthily follow the mechanical methods of Nottingham, they do
not fail to infuse originality and thought into their designs, and
that in machine lace there is a tendency to approach more and
more to the excellence which characterises the hand-made fabric :
whilst not unfrequently novelties are attempted which, though not
ahva37s satisfactory in their results as regards purity of taste, yet
are evidences of a strong vitality seeking to be freed from the
absolute trammels of old conventional types.

In embroideries and tambour-work on cambric and muslin, the
French productions are worthy of special study by our Scotch and
Irish manufacturers. In Fabriquea de Tarare, the curtains, &c,
exhibited by Fonteret, pere et Jils (5759, Empire Francais), and
Plauns, neveu (5928, Empire Francais), both of Tarare, the beauty
of the designs are only equalled by the excellence and perfection
with which they are rendered in tambour-work.

This brings us to the consideration of the hand-made laces of
the Exposition, upon which enough could be said in detail to
occupy a large portion of the space at our disposal. The results,
however, can after all be only realised in a thorough examination
by the manufacturer and merchant interested in this special
industry. Ttie blonde laces of Caen and Bayeux, displayed in
berthes, scarfs, shawls, aud robes, do honour to the skill of the
women of the department of Calvados, and the artistic taste of its
manufacturers. The white thread laces of Lille, the recherche
productions of Chantilly, the comparatively cheap hand-made
laces of Arras, and the costly point dAlencon, are all suggestive
to the intelligent observer, and, it must be confessed, convey
lessons in what to avoid, as well as hints what to imitate, and
possibly even improve upon.

Amongst the most noteworthy of the individual exhibits of
French lace, as also most likely to repay a careful examination,
we may instance the mantles, collars, and flouuees of M. Balme of
Puy (Haute Loire), (7745, Empire Francais) ; Seguin, of Paris
(7782, Empire Francais), one specimen, a couvre-pied, being of
extraordinary beauty of design and execution ; the specimens of
Loiseau of Paris (7769, Empire Francais), Delambre & Co., of
Paris (7752, Empire Francais), Geffrier, Walmez, aud Delisle,
f Teres, of Paris (7759, Empire Francais), and Pagny, a'tni, of Paris
(7774, Empire Francais). All are more or less remarkable for
superiority of design, execution, and for an intelligent adaptation
of means to a given end.

As a whole the most complete illustration of the perfection to
which the lace manufacture of France has attained, is to be found
in the display of M. Lefebure, to whom the place d honncur in this
specialite has been given in the Palais de l'lndustrie. The exam-
ples of point dAlencon in robes, handkerchiefs, &c, as also of the
black laces of Bayeux are most exquisite in design and execution.
One shawl is certainly the most perfect thing of the kind in the
Exposition. It is so thoroughly and essentially lace as to leave
nothing further to be desired. The distribution of the forms are
so equal; the variation in the lines aud arrangement so artistic as
to strike any one who pays the least attention to the requirements
of this particular manufacture. Here we see none of those blotchy
quantities sprawling over indefinite surfaces, aud threatening to
grow too large even for the liberty of space thus allowed them,
whilst their ponderous forms, if considered as an element of weight,
would sink any extent of the coarsest manufacture ever con-
structed of warp and woof. On the contrary, every point has
been well studied, carefully adapted and laid down to the precise
requirements of the article decorated ; and whilst the ensemble is
perfect, the details, as a matter of course, have been carefully
subordinated thereto.

Probably the perfection of a certain class of lace was never more
fully illustrated than in the comparatively small display of Spain.
There are some three or four exhibitors of blonde veils, and
" Valenciennes " lace mantillas of great beauty and purity of design,
who have so carefully selected their specimens and displayed them