Wedding veil (50.25)

Cream colored wedding veil. Silk machine-made net with needlerun lace (embroidered through the net) around sides and along bottom. Four large floral sprays are arranged along the lower edge, two in flower bouquets and two having flowers around cornucopias. A scalloped lower edge has an embroidered and openwork rose in each scallop. Additional small-scale embroidery is along the side edges. The top is plain, folded over and sewn with a deep hem for affixing to a wedding bonnet or in the hair. The veil has been mounted onto a rusty-pink cotton chintz panel, and a piece of card stock with an inscription giving the veil's history has been sewn near the top.

Provenance Narrative
The donor stated that this was the 1828 wedding veil of E.L. Seely, with no further information. Recent research has identified E.L. as Emily Louise Seely, b. 1813, who married in 1835, not 1828, in New York, Lewis Hallock. Their son Lewis was the donor's father. Emily and Lewis lived in New York City and had five children. Emily died in 1893.

Machine-made nets were produced starting about 1800, and were soon used as the basis for embroidered and appliquéd designs imitating more costly bobbin lace. Tambour embroidery and muslin appliqué were techniques used on nets as well as that seen here, needlerun embroidery. In needlerun lace, threads as fine as that used on the ground net are run in and out of the mesh in a wide variety of stitches to create a variety of textured effects and openwork.

Needlerun lace is also known as darned net, "Nottingham lace" after the English city where much of it was made in the early 19th century, and Limerick lace. Needlerun lace was produced in Limerick, Ireland after 1829. This example may have been produced in Ireland.

Place Made
Ireland, possibly