Thu Jul 8, 2021 10:11 AM

July 8, 2021

I’ve been looking at this lily (or maybe it is an iris?) In a length of lace from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s collection https://clevelandart.org/art/1933.301 It has some similarities to the more formalized fleur-de-lis we find in Vinciolo and Vecellio as well as the more detailed flowers that scroll through but it really isn’t taken from those patterns. It is both more naturalistic and more blocky. The raised veins in the flower are just beautiful. It has me wondering if it is a personalized emblem/badge? Always more questions than answers, but likewise more exciting details to look at.

Vinciolo images from the copy in Cleveland’s Ingall’s Library https://archive.org/details/Vinciolo Les singuliers et nouveaux pourtraicts, pour toutes sortes d’ouvrages de lingerie : Vinciolo, Federico de, active 1587-1599

Vecellio images from the 1886 Hoepli reprint: Pizzi antichi di Cesare Vecellio; con una introduzione di A. Melani. : Vecellio, Cesare https://archive.org/details/vecellio16171886pizziwhz (And a reminder that Helen Hough has collected and posted many of the books in an accessible list on the Internet Archive for easy browsing. https://archive.org/details/early-modern-embroidery-and-lace-pattern-books )