Flea Market Item 26-288

This lace is a beautiful survivor from the Belle Époque and would be equally at home in a textile collection, a museum-quality costume restoration, or a curated collection of French mercerie. In today’s market, long lengths of fine French black lace such as this are becoming increasingly sought after because so few have survived intact.

This is a piece of black Chantilly-style bobbin lace, almost certainly made in France, and dating to the late 19th or early 20th century (c. 1880–1910).

The antique lace is worked on a very fine hexagonal mesh ground (réseau), characteristic of Chantilly lace. The design features:

• graceful scrolling floral garlands

• small dotted motifs (known as pois)

• trellis panels with tiny floral sprays

• richly shaded flowers and leaves created with denser stitching

• a deeply scalloped border finished with graceful leaf motifs