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'Holland' lace in Friesland
Luxury product
Hand-made lace has always been a luxury product. From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, wealthy women loved to flaunt their expensive laces, not only as part of their dress but also as an adornment to their bed linen. Nowadays transparent lace with floral patterns is mechanically produced and thus affordable to all.
'Holland lace' is bobbin lace with a tight symmetrical pattern of oval flowers derived from Chinese examples found on the silk and chinaware imported by the VOC. From around 1650 to the mid-nineteenth century, Holland lace was produced in Brabant and sold in Antwerp. From Antwerp large quantities were shipped to Amsterdam, where it was bought by Frisians who took it home to have caps made out of it or have it sewn on to their best bed linen.
During the eighteenth century, lace became more transparent. The symmetrical motif had by then gone out of fashion but it remained in use in lace for caps that were part of the regional dress. In Friesland it was incorporated in the eighteenth-century German cap, which had an increasingly broad strip of lace around the face.
Antwerp pot lace replaced Holland lace around 1780. It is characterized by a classic vase or pot motif. This symmetrical design remained extremely popular in the nineteenth century for the Frisian floppy cap, with its lace neck veil. These caps were worn over the Frisian cap brooch. In the eighteenth century, the cap brooch consisted of a narrow metal band with studs, but in the nineteenth century the cap brooch ‘grew’ to become a silver or gold helmet.
Birthing sheets in the seventeenth century
Many infants and mothers died in childbirth during the seventeenth century. Great care was therefore lavished on mothers and children. Rich Frisian women had their childbed made up with a sumptuous birthing sheet that was richly embroidered and trimmed with bobbin lace. Mother and child stayed in the birthing room for six to eight weeks. Visitors were received there too.
In the first half of the seventeenth century, lace developed from simple plaited lace to tight lace with floral motifs. This development is reflected in the birthing sheets that have been preserved. In the eighteenth century, the lace motifs became increasingly diverse. Various types of lace came to be produced, for example Mechlin lace and Valenciennes lace, which were named after their places of origin. An extraordinary fine example is a large ‘German cap’ with a hydrogen balloon.
Lace and the ‘Frisian costume’
Caps and cap brooches
Until the beginning of the twentieth century it was customary for women to cover their heads, particularly in rural areas. The Frisian custom was to wear a cap with a cap brooch. The cap brooch, a metal wire for fastening the cap to the head, was worn in the Netherlands from the late fifteenth century to around 1650. In Friesland, the cap brooch remained in use after that period too. In the eighteenth century, it was worn under a progressively larger ‘German’ (Duitse = dietse, i.e. common-folk) cap. A simple round cap with a lace trim along the face was then worn all over the country, but in prosperous Friesland the lace trim became ever more impressive.
A change in fashion around 1800 required a different type of cap, however, which had a neck veil. The veil became increasingly shorter during the nineteenth century, while the cap brooch became ever larger, until it took the form of a helmet.
'Frisian costume' and fashion
Frisian women simultaneously followed two clothing styles: the Frisian fashion of the caps and the international fashion as dictated by Paris.
In the eighteenth century, they wore long skirts with wide hips, close-fitting smocks with three-quarter sleeves and low necklines. Over it, a pinafore and a scarf, the tipdoek (i.e., with a point) was worn. Chintz, cotton cloth from India hand painted with flower motifs, was very popular.
Around 1800, fashion dictated tight skirts and long smocks with short sleeves; after 1825, skirts became wider again and sleeves billowed. Around 1835, the long sleeves were called gigot sleeves after their ‘leg of mutton’ shape.
Between 1850 and 1865, skirts were extremely wide and supported by a crinoline or hoop skirt. Above it, a smock and a wrinkled pinafore were worn. Clothes from this period have been adopted by folk dance groups as the traditional Frisian costume.
The Frisian costume as dress-up attire
Girls were usually given their first silver cap brooch around age fourteen. Princess Wilhelmina was twelve years old when her father, King William III, died in 1892. This made her the reigning monarch, although her mother, Princess Emma, served as regent until Wilhelmina came of age. In 1892, the pair visited Friesland, where Wilhelmina was presented with a traditional Frisian costume in remembrance of her Frisian ancestors.
Around 1900, most Frisian women no longer wore the Frisian costume. It had become a dress-up attire that was worn on special occasions.
Around 1900
Children – boys as well as girls – were dressed up in white smocks trimmed with embroidered mock lace that was often referred to as ‘broderie’. Most people could no longer afford bobbin lace but the motifs used were still based on floral patterns.
Genuine lace in Friesland
Needlepoint lace and bobbin lace are the official techniques for creating an open fabric with one or more threads. Both techniques originated in the sixteenth century.
Bobbin lace is made by braiding several threads, each wound on a bobbin, in a particular order.
The various changes in relative position of these threads are called ‘twists’, as in linen twist and mesh twist. Bobbin lace is created on a pillow where it is held in place with pins, which is why it used to be called ‘pinwork’. A tight motif is usually made in linen twist, while – depending on the place of origin – various twists are used for the mesh ‘ground’. Hence the distinctive Lille, Mechlin and Valenciennes bobbin laces.
Needlepoint lace is a type of embroidery without a cloth base. First, scaffolding threads are placed on a piece of cloth or paper in a particular pattern and then fastened with stitches to fix the pattern. The scaffolding threads are then embroidered with a festoon stitch, which covers the threads and fills the gaps between them. Finally, the scaffolding threads are cut loose and the needlepoint lace can be removed from its base.
The display case mainly contains bobbin lace and shows its development from around 1600 to 1800. Only a few examples of needlepoint lace have been preserved in Friesland. Four strips are displayed on the right.
