http://tinyurl.com/3zl7adn Antique Rococo handmade lace lovely Bertha collar
Size: 40″ inside edge, 5.5″ wide
Starting price: 39.99 GBP
Auction ends: Oct 27, 2011 08:20:55 PDT
Offered by: Ebay seller discover4, London, United Kingdom
Comments: This auction will probably be over by the time I get th is posted, but I wanted to discuss something. Is this Italian Cantu or Belgian Rococo? The designs for both are very similar, including both the hook and the 3 or 5 petal flowers.  But there are important technical differences, and I’ll have to call this one Cantu. Cantu lace conserves the number of threads throughout the piece, handling excess threads by bundling them to the side of the motifs and tapes. There is no footside edge to tapes, it has a simple turning stitch and no pin support along the edges. Rococo has a footside on both sides of the tapes, and threads are cut off or added as they are needed. No bundling. There aren’t a lot of closeups of this piece, but the lack of footside edgings on the tape is obvious. The condition looks good, maybe just a little worn.

   Sold for 44.00 GBP, 2 bidders

http://tinyurl.com/44rc5oj gorgeous antique brussels handworked applied bobbin lace wedding stole /veil
Size: ~18″ at lower edges, x 96″
Starting price: 50.00 GBP with reserve
Auction ends: Oct 28, 2011 04:32:57 PDT
Offered by: Ebay seller reddolly123, nottingham, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom
Comments: A rectangular shawl of Brussels bobbinlace application on machine net. Note the extra touch of the small dots in the ground around the ends. A nice design of flowers, leaves and ribbons, well filled out on the ends where it counts the most for a shawl. There aren’t enough closeup details, but I’m wondering if there isn’t a little net embroidery used as fillings in some of the empty spaces. Seller cites a few tiny holes and some brown spots – generally good condition.

   Sold for 123.00 GBP, 6 bidders

http://tinyurl.com/3hpml7x ANTIQUE LA.CE-LOVELY 19THC. IRISH NEEDLERUN WEDDING VEIL
Size: 54-56″, I assume it is square.
Starting price: $75.00
Auction ends: Oct 30, 2011 08:16:21 PDT
Offered by: Maria Niforos, Ebay seller mithya, London-New York, United States
Comments: A very good embroidered net shawl. The design is quite lovely and very well done. Irish? Maybe, I’m not sure. There are some condition issues, a few holes and repairs. I don’t often put this kind of lace up on the alerts, but this one really jumped out at me.

   Sold for $81.00, 2 bidders.

http://tinyurl.com/3r3l9o8 ANTIQUE LACE-CIRCA 17-18THC. BOBBIN LACE
Size: 7.5″ X 42″
Starting price: $35.00
Auction ends: Oct 30, 2011 08:37:03 PDT
Offered by: Maria Niforos, Ebay seller mithya, London-New York, United States
Comments: Probably a late 17th century Flemish border. It is a pieced lace with a plaited ground added later – you can see threads being carried over at the back of the motifs. The motifs have a bit of a tape-like appearance, and aren’t too dissimilar from the ‘rococo’ techniques discussed in the Cantu collar item at the beginning of this post. Condition is problematic – one edge is pretty rough, adn this seems to have been washed a few times over its life.

   Sold for $36.00, 2 bidders.

http://tinyurl.com/3p8l5mb ANTIQUE LACE- 94″ OFEARLY INSERTION , SCALLOPED LACE
Size: 6″ X 94″
Starting price: $65.00
Auction ends: Oct 30, 2011 08:39:43 PDT
Offered by: Maria Niforos, Ebay seller mithya, London-New York, United States
Comments: A reticella insertion with a bobbinlace border. The reticella part looks like it retains the original linen next to the bobbinlace, the other edge looks cut with another piece attached. The bobbinlace has many of the marks of Genoese production, including feeding all the threads into the straight border as the work winds up and down along the pattern. Neither of these elements is of the highest quality, and the match between the two designs isn’t the best. I hesitate to put a date here, and other than a probably Italian origin, it’s difficult to say. The pieces could have been married later. Still, it’s a good collectible length containing two important techniques. Condition is OK, you can spot a few loose areas in both. And the reticella looks a little thin and straggly in places. But it is interesting, Angharad Rixon did some excellent Scanning Electron Microscope research in 2000, published as “A Fault in the Thread? Examining Fibers Taken from Laces of the Sixteenth and Seventh Centuries”, in which she found a substantial amount of cotton combined with the linen in just this kind of early lace.

   Sold for $66.00, 2 bidders.

http://tinyurl.com/3bsxfv7 ANTIQUE LACE-BRUSSELS POINT DE GAZE COLLAR
Size: 4.5″ X 23.5″
Starting price: $39.99
Auction ends: Oct 30, 2011 08:55:42 PDT
Offered by: Maria Niforos, Ebay seller mithya, London-New York, United States
Comments: A small Point de Gaze collar in excellent condition. the design looks quite good from a distance, closeup the technique is fairly ordinary. It does have linked picots on the outer edge done in imitation of Alençon horshair – that’s the sign of a better manufacturer.

   Sold for $47.00, 3 bidders.

http://tinyurl.com/3gskubj Stunning Silk Maltese Lace Handkerchief
Size: 12.00″ square
Starting price: 5.00 GBP
Auction ends: Oct 30, 2011 09:39:06 PDT
Offered by: Ebay seller supa-troopa, London-New York, United States
Comments: The large Maltese cross in the center of this handkerchief is a little touristy, but the lace is actually quite nice. The guipure work is interesting, and more varied than one usually finds in Maltese.  Given the size, I think the work is finer than it looks.  Condition of the lace is quite good, but you can see some stains in the cloth.

   Sold for 25.00 GBP, 6 bidders

http://tinyurl.com/3cmvauj Antique French Duvelleroy w Faux Tortorse And Lace Fan
Size: 13.5″ long, 25″ unfolded. It’s a fairly large piece.
Starting price: 5.00 GBP
Auction ends: Oct 30, 2011 18:48:09 PDT
Offered by: Ebay seller mcantique, Rehoboth,Massachusetts, United States
Comments: The Chantilly lace on this fan looks very well done. There are no detailed photos of the outside edge, and I think it matches the rest of the leaf. You have to stare a while to really be sure.  Nice faux tortoiseshell sticks, and the Duvelleroy box is a sign of a high quality product. Condition looks very good, I don’t see anything wrong with the lace, although the seller cites some small stains. Even the box looks nice.

   Sold for $187.50, 8 bidders.

http://tinyurl.com/3jpgbqr Antique Alencon needle lace 1850’s lovely length
Size: 5.5″ x 75″
Starting price: 59.99 GBP
Auction ends: Oct 31, 2011 08:52:58 PDT
Offered by: Ebay seller discover4, London, United Kingdom
Comments: A lovely lace and quite finely worked. It looks like brides tortillée with the regular reseau along the edge. Not an uncommon combination for late 18th early 19th century laces. The straight edge, and the use of shading I think puts this in the Napoleonic era. It is a good collectible length, with just a few small holes along most of the length. One end has a few larger holes, but it’s not serious.

   Sold for 79.00 GBP, 2 bidders.

http://tinyurl.com/3lmksej Antique lovely Brussels lace handkerchief
Size: 11″ x 11.5″
Starting price: 29.99 GBP
Auction ends: Oct 31, 2011 09:00:57 PDT
Offered by: Ebay seller discover4, London, United Kingdom
Comments: A Duchesse handkerchief, nicely worked. No needlelace that I can see, but there is a good amount of raised work in the bobbinlace. There is also a well-done  monogram in the center cloth. Seller cites a few minor pulls in the lace, overall quite good condition.

   Sold for 37.00 GBP, 5 bidders.