[stag_toggle style=”normal” title=”Piece details” state=”closed”]Prince Carol's baptismal diaper
Author: Queen Elizabeth, 1894
Frivolité lace, bobbin lace; silk, cotton, crochet; macramé
Dimensions: 74 x 76 cm[/stag_toggle]
Queen Elisabeth, the first sovereign of Romania, is known and appreciated for her rich literary and cultural activity. As a patron of the arts, she practiced and cultivated manual work, especially making bobbin lace (frivolité), a passion she discovered and cherished towards adulthood. The queen raised the technique, called frivolité, to the status of art. She dedicated many hours to her precious lace, as Zoe Cămărăşescu, the daughter of the maid of honor, Zoe Bengescu, mentions in the book “Amintiri”, describing an evening of music at the castle: “Wagnerian auditions took place in the afternoons, towards evening. […] The big lights would go out. Only the queen kept a small lamp, under which she continued to work on her lace, lying on the chaise-longue, working tirelessly. In an almost religious meditation, the first chords resounded, from an instrument that we were used to calling a piano, but under Enescu's hands it became something completely different."
The museum's heritage preserves five laces made by Queen Elizabeth between 1893 and 1916, considered true works of art.
Frivolité lace differs from regular lace, made with a crochet hook or needle, in its execution and the tool used, the bobbin. The technique was developed to imitate lace stitch. The most elaborate pieces are worked with two or even three bobbins. Their designs have rounded lines and are mainly composed of knots.
The most valuable and appreciated of Queen Elizabeth's lace is the baptismal diaper of Prince Carol, who would become King Carol II in 1930. The piece was made between 1893-1894, and is signed and dated "CS 1894". Presented at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900, it was awarded the Gold Medal due to the beauty and finesse with which it was executed. The diaper is made almost entirely of natural white silk, in the frivolité technique, being the most meticulous object in the category of the queen's lace.
Square in shape, it represents inscriptions in Romanian, as well as emblems-qualities that the baby should possess throughout life. In the central medallion, one can read the inscription "nani nai bobocelule"; in the register, in capital letters, "CS" (Carmen Sylva, the pseudonym of Queen Elizabeth), "NABPTE BONA BABY" (good night, baby); and on the border, the words "beautiful, generous, thoughtful, wise, brave, lively and diligent." In the corners of the diaper, four angels appear, which are found in a British quatrain: "Four corners to my bed,/ Four angels round my head,/ One to watch and one to pray,/ And two to bear my soul away." (Four corners to my bed,/ Four angels round my head,/ One to watch and one to pray,/ Two to carry my soul away.)
The baptismal diaper was published in the book “The Art of Tatting”, written by the sovereign’s friend, Lady Katharin Hoare, published in 1910 by Longmans, Green & Co., London. The introduction to the publication is signed by Queen Elizabeth, constituting a message and an exhortation to all ladies passionate and eager to learn this craft so dear to her. In the sovereign’s opinion, working with a bobbin is a therapy, the needle or bobbin acting as a friend, but also a moment of introspection, as she would confess: “How many worries and troubles, how much deep anguish and sadness (are woven) into the silent work of a woman (…) Many would say: What a blessing that my lace cannot speak. How amazing it would be to raise one's voice and reveal one's thoughts (...) The seam hides a tear here, a sigh there or a repressed word, which if spoken would have hurt...".