Fashion and Virtue: Textile Patterns and the Print Revolution, 1520-1620
Sponsors: The Placido Arango Fund and the William Randolph Hearst Foundation
Dates: Tuesday, October 20, 2015 to Sunday, January 10, 2015
Location: Robert Lehman Wing, galleries 964-965, Lower Level
Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10028-0198
Curator: Femke Speelberg, Associate Curator in the Department of Drawings and Prints
Websites: http://tinyurl.com/o8yhffp http://tinyurl.com/oavmjla
Hashtag: #FashionandVirtue – visitors are encouraged to post photos of the exhibition on Twitter.
Publication: Met Bulletin Publication, price $14.95. Contains an article by Frank Speelberg.
Email: communications@metmuseum.org
Telephone: 212-570-3951
Hours: Main Building
Sunday-Thursday, 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM
Fridays and Saturdays, 10:00AM to 9:00 PM
General Admission fees:
Suggested donation: Adults $25, Seniors 65 and over $17, students with valid ID $12
Members and children accompanied by an adult, free
Fees include admission to the Met’s collection and all special exhibition.

Related Events:
Gallery Talk: Wednesday, Nov 4, 2015 11:00 to 12:00, Exhibition Tour
Free Lecture: MetFridays Conversation, Friday, Nov 6, 2015 6:00 to 7:00 PM, Gallery 964. Todd Oldham and Femke Speelberg.
Gallery Talk: Friday, Nov 20, 2015 11:00 to 12:00, Exhibition Tour
Sunday Studio: Sunday, Nov 6, 2015 1:00 to 4:00 PM, Light and Shadow Designs
Gallery Talk: Saturday, Dec 19, 2015, 2015 11:00 to 12:00, Exhibition Tour
Studio Workshop: Textile Design with Ink and Thread, three sessions sponsored by the Textile Arts Center –
Sunday, Jan 10, 2016 1:00 to 5:00 PM, Sunday, Jan 17, 2016 1:00 to 5:00 PM,
Sunday Jan 245, 2016 1:00 to 5:00 PM
Fee $215 for the three-session workshop.

This is an important, although not well advertised exhibition. It is  put on by the Met Prints and Drawings department and is of great interest to the lace community especially those people who are interested in history and the inter-relationship between two disciplines that were burgeoning in tandem, print and lace making.  The Met has an extensive collection of early pattern books for textiles and lace, all of which have been recently conserved, scanned in their entirely and are available for viewing on the museum’s website.  The books are matched with examples of lace (35 pieces), embroidery, weavings, costumes and oil paintings which provide clear evidence of the dissemination of these early printed designs throughout the needlework community of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Curator Femke Speelberg made the decision to include on a single wall an entire previous exhibit that was put on by the department of Prints and Drawings in the 1930s. Curated by Margaret Daniels (later Margaret Abbegg who wrote “Apropos Patterns for Embroidery, Lace and Woven Textiles”), this exhibit consisted of cards on which photographic copies of patterns from the pattern books were paired with examples from the lace collection of the well known lace historian and member of the Needle and Bobbin Club, Marian Hague. These samples are small and in some cases in poor condition, but they have long been among the most popularly requested items by visitors to the Ratti Center who want to view authentic lace from the 16th and 17th century.

Devon Thein sent much of this information and the images below from the exhibition: