Ancient Needlepoint and Pillow Lace. With Notes on the History of Lace-Making and Descriptions of Thirty Examples. Under the Science and Art Department of the Committee of Council on Education.
London: Published by the Arundel Society for Promoting the Knowledge of Art, 1875. First edition. [viii], 12 pp. text, followed by twenty leaves of mounted Woodburytype photographs, each with a leaf of descriptive text. Binding extremities rubbed, endpapers foxed, a little light foxing otherwise. A very good, tight copy. Publisher's blue-gray cloth with gilt front cover and spine, top edge gilt. Folio. Item #15968
Cole (1846-1934) was the son of Henry Cole, the first director of the South Kensington Museum, and he himself was also closely connected to the museum. Cole was an expert in textiles, specializing in lace. Other books included Embroidery and Lace: Their Manufacture and History from the Remotest Antiquity to the Present Day (1888), Hand-Made Laces From the South Kensington Museum (1890) and A Renascence of the Irish Art of Lace-Making (1888). "Lace, considered merely as a primitive arrangement of threads, plaited, twisted, or tied, is found with every nation in its earliest state of development, as are the beating of metal, the cutting and shaping of wood, and such work" (p. 1). This book deals shows examples of Italian, Spanish, French and Belgian lace. The Woodburytype process is well-suited to showing the intricate details of the examples."
Price: $750.00