Lace panel with decorative motifs of railroad trains, telegraph poles, electric lights and hot air balloons

Unknown

ca. 1900 · Cotton, machine made lace · European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

This lace border incorporates images of modern transport and transmission of power with railway trains, hot-air balloons, telegraph poles, and electric lights. The motifs echo a preoccupation with the new electrical power, much in evidence at the Paris Exposition, and the lace won a medal. The machine-made lace industry, centered in Nottingham, was enormously successful since it replaced a declining cottage industry, the products of which had become so expensive that they were out of reach of most ordinary people.

Artist

Unknown

Date

ca. 1900

Medium

Cotton, machine made lace

Culture

French

Department

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Credit line

Gift of Stern and Stern Textiles Inc., 1964