# data[].attributes.body
about how my research is going...how I came to these objects?

possible topics to cover around these objects

theme of the ocean, maritime references: lace decoration, the location, the myths too around lace

focus on the individual look of these lace fragments: they do not resemble 18th or 19th centuries lace pieces from Italy or northern places; they seem embroidered, or closer to the aesthetics of embroidery

perhaps these are closer to the Balkans, Russian or Ottoman/Byzantine design?

lace in Crete (Greece): was lace making much different in Crete and Greece to the lace making centers in Europe? Where did the fabric come from? Who was it for?

how much of the history of Greece & Greek mythology shaped references into the product but also process?

# data[].attributes.headline
‘Burano’s Lace-Making: An Honourable Craft’ by Sciama, Lidia

# data[].attributes.subject
‘Burano’s Lace-Making: An Honourable Craft’ by Sciama, Lidia

# data[].attributes.body
‘A twelve-year old girl provided the following version: “A young woman was standing by the sea. She was waiting for her lover to return and while she waited she saw that the seaweed had formed a beautiful woven pattern (un lavoro bellissimo) on the edge of the water. She liked the work very much, and when she returned home, she tried to copy it with some thread and a needle: she saw that it was coming out very nicely. She then taught other girls, and they all added something to it and they worked out new stitched”’

'A boy told me the following, somewhat different, account: “One day some fishermen went off on a fishing expedition. They saw a rock and on the rock was a siren. All of them tied one another up on the mast of the boat except one who wanted to be faithful to the woman he was going to marry. The siren saw that he had been strong and she wanted to give him a gift. She struck the water with her tail, and she thus produced some foam. As the sea foam dried on the rock it formed a piece of lace. The sailor [fisherman?] then took it back and it served as a veil for his bride. It was very beautiful and all marriageable girls copied it.”’ p.179

# data[].attributes.body
Archives:

Historical Archive of Crete at Hania

Institutions:

The “B. Papantoniou” Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation (PFF) http://www.pli.gr/en

The Benaki Museum https://www.benaki.org/index.php?option=com_collections&view=collection&id=35&Itemid=540&lang=en

The Greek Institute

Saint Louis Art Museum, exhibit Greek Island Embroideries https://www.slam.org/exhibitions/greek-island-embroideries/

The Historical Museum of Crete https://www.historical-museum.gr/eng/

Musée des Tissus, Lyon https://www.museedestissus.fr/

Cité de la Dentelle et de la Mode https://www.cite-dentelle.fr/en/

Textile Research Center https://trc-leiden.nl/trc/index.php/en/about-us/general-information; https://trc-leiden.nl/trc-digital-exhibition/index.php/velvet/itemlist/tag/ancientgreektextiles

# data[].attributes.body
lace in Crete; Cretan lace in the 18th and 19th century

Cretan lace vs. Venetian lace

Cretan lace in relationship to the Ottoman Empire, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern fibre culture

Labour, female labour, in the making of lace

Where did the lace, the flax come from? How was it produced?

Most interesting for me: the relationship between lace, these fragments, and the myths of the Greek Islands, and stories told around the origins of lace ~ these circle around maritime themes, aquatic symbols, thinking of fishing, fisherman and sailors and fishnets

# data[].attributes.body
Border, lace, bobbin lace, 18th to 19th century

From the Thomas Sandwith Collection.

de Chaves, Lila, Greek lace in the Victoria & Albert Museum / introduction by Despina Koutsika. Athens : Indiktos, 1999. 236