Fragment of a Band with Winding Design and Tendrils (1500s): Art, History and Details

Fragment of a Band with Winding Design and Tendrils (1500s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

A scrolling vine with budding vegetation or a tendril motif is a recurring pattern in needle lace. The frequent use of the motif, adapted in lace from different centuries and regions, suggests that it was found in a pattern book.

Object facts

• Title: Fragment of a Band with Winding Design and Tendrils
• Date: 1500s
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Lace
• Technique: Bleached linen (est.): needle lace, filet/lacis (knotted ground and darned in one and two directions); bleached linen (est.)
• Dimensions: Overall: 9.5 x 42.3 cm (3 3/4 x 16 5/8 in.)
• Collection: T - Lace
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1920.1155

A detail from the museum

Pattern books for lace-making and other needlework were aimed at well-to-do women and girls to encourage domestic virtue.

Collection credit

Gift of J. H. Wade

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William Mathewson. “Lace and Its Development: I. The Beginnings.” Antiques 1 (May 1922): 211-216.
• Simeon, Margaret. The History of Lace. London: Stainer and Bell, 1979.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.