Les Singuliers et Nouveaux Portraicts... 1588

Curator: Let’s turn our attention to a rather intricate piece: "Les Singuliers et Nouveaux Portraicts..." It’s a print, an etching to be exact, from 1588, bound in a book designed by Federico de Vinciolo. Editor: My first impression? Exquisite! The density of the lace designs, so delicate yet bold against the dark page. It feels like a miniature stage, or a contained world with each shape performing its own role. Curator: Precisely. Vinciolo was quite influential in disseminating these lace patterns. In the late 16th century, pattern books played a critical role. Think about it – how else could artisans, often women, access designs for fashionable clothing and household linens? Editor: So, this isn't just about aesthetics; it’s also about accessibility and the empowerment, in a way, of craftswomen. Lace was luxury. Creating this book surely disrupted previous social frameworks controlling its use. Were these books exclusively for wealthy patrons? Curator: No, though they were certainly not cheap. Ownership signaled an engagement with fashion, perhaps a level of social aspiration, irrespective of your formal title or class. These designs would spread far beyond the elites, influencing techniques and designs in workshops. It's fascinating to note the recurring motifs: the geometric patterns, interwoven with what appears to be floral elements and, what's that in the upper-right segment—an animal, a figure of some sort? Editor: I see it! It is something, maybe a bird perched in what resembles a cathedral window, the secular within the sacred or maybe challenging this binary all together. It sparks a conversation about what domestic spaces could and can be and how domestic objects have long been part of the world-making that happened far beyond a single residence. How powerful, that this object offers a script for challenging set ways. Curator: Indeed. Seeing the piece now in the Metropolitan Museum, bound, reminds us that these books were objects meant to be engaged with actively. Editor: Absolutely. To witness a slice of a cultural network operating several centuries ago leaves me appreciating the labour, resistance, and ingenuity embedded in such ordinary, often unacknowledged art forms.