Lace Flounce (1750–99): Art, History and Details

Lace Flounce (1750–99) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Being the most prestigious material, lace was used extensively by the 1600s for altar linen and for trimming priest’s albs, often incorporating finely rendered religious images amid blossoming vines. This alb flounce depicts scenes from the Old Testament story of Joseph, whose jealous brothers sold him to a caravan bound for Egypt. Joseph later interpreted dreams of the pharaoh, who made him ruler. When famine in Canaan caused Joseph’s ten brothers to travel to Egypt in search of food, they bowed down to him. After he revealed his identity, he forgave his brothers and God saved the family.

Object facts

• Title: Lace Flounce
• Date: 1750–99
• Culture: Italy, possibly Milan
• Type: Lace
• Technique: Linen: bobbin lace (Punto di Milano)
• Dimensions: Average: 33.7 x 348 cm (13 1/4 x 137 in.)
• Collection: T - Ecclesiastical
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1923.997

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. Edward B. Greene, G. G. Wade and J. H. Wade Jr. for the Ellen Garretson Wade Memorial Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Ricci, Elisa. Old Italian Lace. London, Philadelphia: William Heinemann ; J.B. Lippincott Company, 1913.
• W. M. M. (William M. Milliken) “Loan Exhibition of Lace.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 8, no. 10 (1921).
• Milliken, W. Mathewson. 1922. “Lace and Its Development: III. Venetian Point and Punto di Milano.” Antiques, V. 2. (October)

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.