Lace Cloth (1560–1600): Art, History and Details

Lace Cloth (1560–1600) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Consisting of more than 80 squares of cutwork (a cut and embellished linen ground) and rectangles of reticella (needle lace), this luxurious cover could have been made by a single person or several people who divided the work. Close looking reveals that the cloth is made with threads of two very slightly different colors: bleached and unbleached linen. Together the sections resemble snowflakes, which are of similar shape and size but vary subtly from one another. The perplexing dark stitches in the upper left corner do not repair damage, and might be the maker’s signature.

Object facts

• Title: Lace Cloth
• Date: 1560–1600
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Lace
• Technique: Linen; needle lace (cutwork and reticella)
• Dimensions: Overall: 131.4 x 184.2 cm (51 3/4 x 72 1/2 in.); Mounted: 148.9 x 202.2 cm (58 5/8 x 79 5/8 in.)
• Collection: T - Lace
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1930.656

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. Edward S. Harkness in memory of Mrs. Stephen V. Harkness

Further reading listed by the museum

• Gertrude Underhill. "An Important Gift of Needle-Point Laces to the Museum." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 18, no. 1 (1931).
• Levey, Santina M. Lace: A History. [London]: Victoria & Albert Museum, 2004.

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.