Chapter VIII: Introduction (5)

The manuscript account of Spanish costumes early in the nineteenth century, and which is prefixed to my copy of Pigal's coloured lithographs, contains some excellent descriptions of the older Spanish _mantilla_. We learn, for instance, that at Palma the women of the well-to-do middle class wore a _mantilla_ of black taffeta, trimmed with blonde (Plate xviii.).[55] In La Mancha, and among the peasants, it was of white muslin; at Cordova, in cold weather, "en flanelle ou en bayette fine: elle est garnie de rubans à l'extrémité desquels il y a deux gros noeuds: en été elle est en mousseline." The small _mantilla_ or "mantellina" of the wife of the smuggler of Tarifa was "en flanelle blanche, ou noire, ou rose, brodée d'un ruban: elle en fait três souvent un usage différent des autres femmes espagnoles, car au lieu de la mettre sur la tête attachés avec des épingles, elle s'en sert de schal: quelque fois elle la met en baudrier laissant flotter derrière elle les deux extrémités qui sont ornées d'un noeud en ruban." The servant-girl of Madrid wore a white _mantilla_ in summer, and a black one in winter. The same author describes in greater detail the _mantillas_ of the fine ladies. "La mantille et la basquigne," he says, "voila de quoi se compose principalement le costume du beau sexe en Espagne. Ce costume, quoique national, est susceptible de recevoir aussi bien que tout autre les divers degrés de luxe que les femmes d'une riche classe et celles du plus haut rang peuvent apporter dans leur parure: la classe la moins aisée porte la mantille en laine noire ou blanche et la basquigne en serge ou autre étoffe de laine noire. Pendant le jour, lorsque les dames espagnoles se présentent en public, c'est toujours avec la mantille et la basquigne, mais le soir si elles vont au spectacle ou ailleurs, elles sortent três souvent habillées à la française."

[55] Blonde, I need hardly state, is silk-lace. It can always be
distinguished by the glossy surface.

Elsewhere he says: "Nous avons déjà dit qu'un simple ruban, un peigne, ou une fleur, est la coiffure adoptée par les dames espagnoles, pour faire usage de la mantille: celle-ci est dans l'hiver quelquefois en serge de soie, taffetas, etc., noir, garnie en outre de blondes, ou d'un large ruban de velours noir en échiquier (_cinta de terciopelo à tablero_), mais ce ruban est toujours noir. Il y eut un temps où la mode, qui ne fut pas de longue durée, prescrivait que les bouts de la mantille se terminassent en trois pointes ornées chacune d'une houppe (_borla_) noire, ou d'un lacet de ruban noir. Jamais les mantilles ne sont doublées."

The same author remarks of the lady of Madrid; "La mantille de tulle brodé ne se porte que dans la belle saison ... elle ne dépasse jamais la ceinture"[56]; and of the lady of Granada: "si la mantille est blanche, elle est en tulle parsemé de petits bouquets et garnie de larges et riches dentelles. Si elle est noire, comme cela arrive plus ordinairement, elle est alors en blonde: il y a de ces mantilles qui coutent cinq cent, mille, et jusqu'à deux mille francs."

[56] This is incorrect. It was sometimes worn longer.

A good deal of lace, principally of the less elaborate and cheaper kinds, was formerly manufactured in the kingdom of Valencia. Cabanillas wrote in 1797 that at Novelda, a small town of this region, more than two thousand women and children worked at making laces, which were hawked about the country by others of the townspeople. Swinburne remarks upon the same industry, and Ricord tells us in his pamphlet (1791) that cotton lace was made in six factories at Torrente, Alicante, and Orihuela.[57] The total product of these factories for the said year was 1,636,100 yards, which sold at from nine to twelve _reales_ the yard. Laborde wrote some years later, in the first volume of his book, that lace, and gold and silver fringes were then made at Valencia, and in the fourth volume; "Gold and silver laced stuffs, and velvets of all colours brocaded and flowered with the same metals, are made at Toledo, Barcelona, Valencia, and Talavera de la Reina; and the manufacture at the last-named city annually consumes four thousand marks of silver, and seventy marks of gold.

[57] A letter from Vargas y Ponce to Cean Bermudez, dated 1797, says
that in this year there existed at Murcia a school for making
blondes, owned by one Castilla. "He does good work, teaches well,
and has executed blondes for the Queen, which are well spoken of."

"At Barcelona, Talavera de la Reina, and Valencia are also manufactured gold and silver edgings, lace, and fringes, though not in a sufficient quantity to answer the demands of Spain; and the gold is very badly prepared, having too red a cast."

Lace-making was an ancient and important industry of every part of Cataluña. Lace articles for ladies' headwear are known to have been made throughout this region at least as far back as the fifteenth century, and Capmany reminds us that by a _cedula_ dated from the Cortes of Monzón, December 16th, 1538, the Emperor Charles the Fifth confirmed the Ordinances of the guild, established long before, of the _tejedores de velos_ of Barcelona. Technical provisions are embodied in this code, concerning various articles of lace employed as headwear, such as _alfardillas_, _quiñales_, and _espumilla_, all of which were largely exported to America.

The attention of foreigners who travelled in Cataluña towards the eighteenth century was constantly attracted by the lace-makers. Swinburne mentions "Martorell, a large town, where much black lace is manufactured," and "Espalungera (Esparraguera?), a long village, full of cloth and lace manufacturers," and wrote of Sarriá and its surroundings, close to Barcelona: "The women in the little hamlets were busy with their bobbins making black lace, some of which, of the coarser kind, is spun out of the leaf of the aloe. It is curious, but of little use, for it grows mucilaginous with washing."

"Martorell," wrote Townsend in 1786, "is one long, narrow street, in which poverty, industry, and filth, although seldom seen together, have agreed to take up their abode. The inhabitants make lace, and even the little children of three and four years old are engaged in this employment." Laborde wrote that at the beginning of the eighteenth century seventeen manufactories of blondes were established at Mataró, and adds of Barcelona province generally at that time: "Laces and blondes constitute the employment of women and children. The work is principally done at Pineda, Malgrat, San Celoni, Tosa, Canet, Arenys, Callela, San-Pol, Mataró, Esparraguera, Martorell, and Barcelona.... The laces are almost all shipped for the New World."

The most observant and most entertaining of all these tourists was Arthur Young, who wrote, in 1787, of the towns upon the coast of Cataluña: "The appearance of industry is as great as it can be: great numbers of fishing-boats and nets, with rows of good white houses on the sea-side; and while the men are active in their fisheries, the women are equally busy making lace." Of Mataró he says: "It appears exceedingly industrious; some stocking-frames; lace-makers at every door.... I am sorry to add that here also the industry of catching lice in each other's heads is well understood.

"Pass Arrengs (Arenys), a large town ... making thread lace universal here. They have thread from France; women earn ten to sixteen _sous_ at it. Great industry, and in consequence a flourishing appearance. Canet, another large town, employed also in ship-building, fishing, and making lace.... Pass Malgrat, which is not so well built as the other towns, but much lace made in it.... Reach Figueras, whose inhabitants seem industrious and active. They make lace, cordage, and mats, and have many potteries of a common sort."[58]

[58] Tour in Catalonia in 1787; Vol. I., p. 644, etc.

Lace-making prevails to-day all through this region of north-eastern Spain, particularly in the strip or zone of it including the valley of the Llobregat as far as Martorell, and which extends from Palamós to Barcelona. The towns which produce the greatest quantities of lace are Arenys de Mar, Malgrat, San Pol, Canet, and Arenys de Munt. In the last of these places an important Regional Exhibition of Lace was held in July of last year, the number of exhibitors amounting to one hundred and twenty-five. Due to the increasing production of underlinen and woven fabrics generally, or to other causes, lace-making has declined at Blanes, Pineda, Calella, and one or two other places. At San Celoni, Vallgorguina, San Vicente, San Andrés de Llevaneras, Argentona, Caldeta, and San Acisclo de Vilalta, lace is made by women who combine this work with dirtier and rougher labour in the field. Most of the lace made in these towns is therefore black.

In the spring of last year, an elaborate lace pocket-handkerchief (Plate xxx.), designed by Señor Riquer, and executed in a traditional style of Cataluña, denominated locally the _ret Catalá_, was made in the old-established lace-factory of the widow of Mariano Castells in the town of Arenys de Mar, and offered by the Agricultural Institute of San Isidro as a wedding-present to Princess Ena of Battenberg. Two _encajeras_ worked at this handkerchief under the personal direction of the widow Castells, and the time employed by them in making it was two months.

Plate xxxi. represents a small portion of a very original and beautiful lace curtain, ten feet high, designed by Señor Aguado, and executed, partly by Señorita Pilar Huguet (who superintended the work throughout), and partly by seventeen of this lady's pupils, at the School of Arts and Industries, Toledo. Although it is a hackneyed trope to declare that the ornamentation of the Spanish-Moors, whether in ivory, wood or metal, stone or plaster, was "delicate enough to seem of lacework," I believe this to be the first occasion when such intricate and graceful motives have been actually reproduced in lace. The result of the experiment has proved surprisingly effective. The design is Spanish-Arabic in its purest form, recalling various arabesques upon the walls of the Alhambra, and includes thirty-three medallions which constitute the principal decorative scheme, a hundred and forty-eight palms or _alharacas_, and the Arabic expression "God is all-powerful," repeated sixty-six times. The centre of the curtain consists in all of four hundred and forty-eight pieces. The broad cenefa or bordering, which runs right round the whole, contains, in Arabic, the following inscription: "This curtain was begun in the _curso_ (course or series of classes) of the year 1903-1904, and terminated in the _curso_ following, (Art) School of Toledo." The style adopted throughout is that of Brussels, known erroneously as English point, although upon a coarser scale than is considered to be proper to this lace, the ground being executed by the needle, or in point-work, and the rest by bobbins.

Plate xxxii. represents a covering for a fan, also executed by Señorita Huguet, and also in the Brussels style. The design is a combination of Mudejar motives, such as conventional foliage and geometrical bordering, with a Spanish scutcheon and the double-headed eagle of the Emperor Charles the Fifth.

At the present day, and largely owing to the initiative and the skilled tuition of Señor Salvi, excellent lace is manufactured at Madrid, including reproductions--which have been generally admired in Great Britain and elsewhere--of the finest point or bobbin work of Malines, Manchester, and Venice.

Appendices