17th Century Lace Accessories
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of seventeenth-century lace accessories dating from 1600 to 1700. This collection, which includes several pieces that were collected by Sir William Burrell (1861–1958) and his wife, Constance, Lady Burrell (1875–1961), covers needle and bobbin laces made in Venice, France and the Low Countries.
Lace was used to make decorative borders that could be applied to items of dress or make accessories, such as collars, cuffs and handkerchiefs. Fashions for different lace designs changed along with that for main garments. The early 1600s favoured light openwork Italian lace, such as reticella and punto di aria. Heavier three-dimensional Venetian Gros point became highly coveted throughout Europe in the mid-1600s, especially in the courts of Louis XIV of France and Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland (1630–85). This in turn was replaced with a variety of lighter styles produced by the late 1600s in a growing number of manufacturing centres across Italy, France and the Low Countries.
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