European Lace in Art and Fashion

Lace as we recognize it today—the delicate, gauzy textile that edges evening wear and undergarments—emerged in northern Italy in the late 1400s. By the early 1500s, printed pattern books and traveling artisans had helped spread its techniques and designs throughout Europe.  

European Lace in Art and Fashion, which is the first exhibition of the Museum’s lace collection in nearly 40 years, celebrates these exquisite textiles alongside extraordinary portraits in various media. Together, these artworks illuminate the creative industries and people that made these splendid works possible. The exhibition explores how mostly anonymous women used simple tools and fine linen thread to create works of extraordinary artistic achievement. By pairing these pieces of lace with painted, sculpted, and printed portraits, exhibition visitors will learn how leading artists, in turn, meticulously captured the varied textures and patterns of this newly fashionable textile.   

A cross-departmental collaboration, this exhibition reveals lace’s role in conveying wealth, status, and identity, as well as the fascinating interconnected histories of art, fashion, geopolitics, and commerce. From the skeletal geometries of early Venetian reticella to the swirling, whisper-thin ribbons of Brussels bobbinwork, visitors will follow lace’s precipitous rise as one of Europe’s most coveted luxury goods and its persistent refashioning and reuse long after its economic, political, and social power had waned. 

European Lace in Art and Fashion is curated by Genevieve Cortinovis, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Associate Curator of Decorative Arts and Design, and Hannah Segrave, associate curator of European art to 1800.