Maas, Marie, Album of lace and embroidery designs, 1869-1875
- Title(s):
- Album of lace and embroidery designs.
- Published/Created:
- France ; Belgium, 1869-1875.
- Physical Description:
- 1 volume (230 drawings on 176 leaves) ; 21 cm
- Holdings:
- Rare Books and ManuscriptsNK9404 .M33 1869Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund[Request]
- Copyright Status:
- Copyright Not Evaluated
- Full Orbis Record:
- http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/14809201
- Classification:
- Drawings & Watercolors
- Notes:
- Bound in contemporary quarter sheep and green boards.
The album includes 230 numbered designs, all apparently drawn by Marie Maas at Cormeilles-en-Parisis (Val d'Oise) and Mons (Hainault, Flanders). The first 10 leaves depict basic design elements; subsequent leaves depict complex decorative borders and patterns of multiple elements: flowers, leaves, trees, geometric shapes, a Napoleonic eagle (for Napoleon III), a memento mori and various ecclesiastical emblems. The compiler has numbered and dated each design. She has signed the front paste down: "Marie Maas, E. de M., 1870 [and] Mons (Hainault), Belgique."
All of the designs are finely drawn in black ink, usually two or three to a page. While some of these designs may have been intended as patterns for lace, many could easily be embroidery designs, especially eyelet embroidery. Some are clearly intended as embroidered borders or corners for textiles, perhaps for shawls or handkerchiefs. Other designs could be patterns for printed textiles, such as those on the leaves numbered 50, 54, 159, and 160. It's also possible that some of the more naturalistic floral and vegetal designs, such as that on page 157, were simply exercises in sketching. The patterns may have been copied from books or ladies' magazines, or products of Maas's own imagination, or (likely) a mix of the two. In many cases guidelines in graphite (an aid to keeping the images straight and/or centered on the pages) can still be discerned. Some of the designs, such as the memento mori (leaf 151) or the eagle (leaf 155) have accompanying messages in French. The last page with designs, leaf 176, contains one design still in progress, drawn in pencil but not ink, and unnumbered. There are 230 numbered designs in total (plus the unnumbered, unfinished design at the very end). - Subject Terms:
- Broderie anglaise.Clothing and dress.Embroidery -- Patterns.Fashion.Lace and lace making -- Patterns.Maas, Marie.Needlework -- Patterns.
- Form/Genre:
- Pattern books.
Ink drawings.
Botanical illustrations.
Memento mori. - Export:
- XML