Reticella Mantle/ Mantlette

Grace Gamble Started March 2020, finished July 2021

Materials: 36 x 48 count 1.65 oz. Linen voile,
100/2 linen thread
Country and time period: English, 16th century, Lace pattern
derived from several extant examples (and knowledge of design
principles.)
Garment inspired by painting “A Lady at her Toilette,” &
extrapolated from extant examples.
Tools: modern steel needle, modern replica embroidery scissors,
paper pattern

This project was inspired by my acquisition of some linen voile that

was so fine that it was almost transparent. I remembered the
painting with (what at the time had seemed) an impossibly
transparent short mantle (or combing cloth) and I KNEW what I
Figure 1 a Lady at her toilette- 1st half of 17th
needed to do with this lovely linen. century- Musee Ingres, Montauban, France

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Linen Mantles in Paintings

The subject matters of these paintings tend toward women in a

more private intimate setting and I do believe that these were
garments more likely to be utilized in the home and not as
much worn in public. (Much like men’s nightcaps)

They do show up in gift lists and inventories

Excerpts from Drea Leed’s Elizabethan dress database:

“By the Barronnes Barkeley, one mantell of lawne cut and

florished with silver plate.” Delivered to the Robes as a New
Year's Gift to the Queen, 1598-1599

“Item, one mantle of white lawne or networke, striped, set

with tufts of blacke silke and spangles of silver.” 1603 Stowe
inventory

“for one mantle of lawne all wrought with cuttworke all ouer
with siluer with works like pomegranets roses honysuckles &
crownes trymed with plate & owes:” 1603: Warrant for the
Robes, May 18, JR 1

“Voile” appears to be similar to “lawn,” with a bit softer hand:

Figure 2 Marcus Gheeraert the Younger 1614 Catherine Killigrew, Lady Jermyn
Definition of “Lawn” from
textileglossary.com:

“A light, fine cloth made

using carded or combed
linen or cotton yarns in a
plain weave. The fabric
has a crease-resistant,
crisp finish. The name
derived from Laon, a city
in France, where linen
lawn was manufactured
extensively. It is light
weight, sheer, soft, and
washable. It is crisper
than voile but not as crisp
as organdy.”

Figure 3 Bunel the Younger,

François- Allegory of the
Struggle BetweenSacred and
Profane Love 1552 - 1595

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Extant Linen Mantles/Mantlettes/Capes

Figure 5 Double frilled cape collar - Middleton Collection - Castlegate

Museum of Textiles, Nottingham UK

Figure 4 Linen mantle, 17th century Victoria and Albert Figure 6 Linen Cape likely worn by Lady Elizabeth Filmer (died 1638)
Museum, London, UK Manchester Gallery, UK

The mantlette in the original painting had multiple

lines of reticella radiating out from the neck,
presumably at regular intervals around the whole
width. (Although you can only see the front of it in
the painting.) I did the math and quickly realized
my project would take 2200 hours to work if I tried
to accomplish THAT much reticella so I pared it
down a bit (to 1300 hours) by substituting
radiating lines of gigliuccio (peahole hemstitch)
instead. While I do have a decent amount of
patience for projects like this, I knew my focus was
going to be pushed to its limits and wasn’t sure I’d
finish without getting side tracked onto another
project. (There are SO bloody many projects I want
to try. And I do have a day job.)
Figure 7 Linen Cape - Fries Museum- Leeuwarden, Netherlands

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The patterning seemed pretty straight forward but
I did have one question…the front of the collar in
the painting seemed to be attaching to the front of
the mantle at 90 degrees. The extant mantles
seemed to have more of a straight connection in
that location. I decided to just go with what the
extant mantles were doing, chalking it up to
artistic license. A straight 45” x 13” rectangle for
the cape pleated into a neckband and the collar,
cut slightly deeper at the back, darting into the top
of the neck band like many extant collars of the Figure 8 Final Patterning diagram
timeperiod.

Which I figured out later was a mistake, once I tried it on.

There was too much fabric at the front of the neck, where
in a doublet the neckline would have been cut down a bit
due to the neck canting forward. It wanted to fold there.
I was able to fix this by picking out my seams and attaching
to the cape at a 45 degree angle at the front.
So not a full 90 degrees, but not straight either.
(see pattern diagram above)

I had to cut my needle lace…which I found a bit traumatic.

But I lived.

Figure 9 front collar band connection reworked to

follow 45 degree diagonal on lace motif

In the past, I had always employed fairly

dense patterns which would have
overpowered this particular linen so I Figure 10 Extant band in the Cleveland Museum of art, accession # 1920.1073
went about designing from extant
examples a series of 4 motifs that were
more lightweight and ephemeral than my
norm. My fear, though, was that utilizing
thinner threads with not as many
reinforcing connections (brides) would
increase the difficulty in laundering and
Figure 12 Extant Band in the Victoria and Albert
Museum, London, UK, accession #T.267-1912 Figure 11 Extant fragment in Cleveland Museum of art, accession # 1920.1071

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 ironing the piece, so I took particular care in not
utilizing elements that might flip, flop or spin and that
all elements were designed to be as straightforwardly
anchored as possible, allowing external tension to
straighten them when ironing.

I worked the motifs using my standard needle lace

stiches, tacking my fabric to a reinforced paper
pattern. (see “Stitch documentation,” separate)
https://pysankigirl.wixsite.com/graceslace/documentation
I bordered the lace with gigliuccio, a pulled thread
hemstich that was employed fairly regularly in period
(see “Gigliuccio documentation,” separate)
24e70c_dd20c33b57844b3788b013f76e6cacc9.pdf (filesusr.com)
Figure 13 Extant band with points Chicago Institute of Art –
accession# 1900.2054
The points I built separately and joined to the piece after
being laundered as I didn’t want to have to wash it again if I
didn’t need to.
Resetting the lace is time consuming and fiddly and I‘ve read
that laundresses that knew how to wash expensive clothing
were paid relatively well. (If you consider 4£ a year well paid)

Carefully laying the linen into the cleaning agent and allowing
the fibers to swell before agitating does help everything stay
put during the laundering process.

I admit, I cannot bring

myself to use period soaps
that might be caustic to
my work. I use Oxyclean
(never bleach!) and make
sure to rinse the linen well
after to get any residual
cleaning agent out that
Figure 14 blocking out the lace after laundering might damage the linen.

I am fairly pleased with the result. The motifs are nice and lightweight.
Figure 25 points soaking
Easily laundered and reset. The front neck now hangs correctly.

The only thing I might change if I were to go back and make it again is: the fabric has to travel further over the
shoulders than it does at the front or the back therefore the hem is slightly uneven when worn. If I had
introduced a bit of a double sine wave cut at the top, peaking over the shoulders, I might have been able to get
the hem to be straighter along the bottom when in use.

But the extant ones do not seem have that kind of artifice employed so perhaps the slight discontent is my
modern sensibilities speaking.

Grace Gamble c 2021 valkerie1000@yahoo.com https://pysankigirl.wixsite.com/graceslacece

Grace Gamble c 2021 valkerie1000@yahoo.com https://pysankigirl.wixsite.com/graceslacece