Antique art nouveau guipure lace collar top with clematis and vines #C355

Description
C355 A large art nouveau (ca1890-1910) cotton guipure (Schliffi) lace fichu style off white cotton Edwardian CLEMATIS collar. The clematis is a plant with over 400 species and there are some native to every part of the world. Exotic species were introduced to Britain and North America in the 1800s, and these mainly vining plants were popular garden plants in Victorian and Edwardian times, and remain so today. In the Victorian language of flowers, the clematis symbolizes intelligence, ingenuity and cleverness, including overcoming adversity using these skills, as well as love of family - brothers, sisters, sons and daughters. On this collar, the clematis vines trail up each tail to a large open flower and smaller pendulous ones on each front shoulder, and then over the shoulder and across the back, culminating in a large central open flower surrounded by leaves, smaller pendulous flowers and buds - all in art nouveau stylized forms. The entire outer edge of the collar is made up of stylized individual clematic leaves while the characteristic 3 part leaves of the clematis can be clearly seen on the back. The inside neckline edge is a heavy ladder. The collar is large - 36" around the neckline from one front point to the other. The width of the collar at centre back is 10 1/2", at the shoulders 5 1/2", halfway down the long tails 4 1/2" top narrowing on 2" near the end and then to a point. Best news of all - this antique collar is in superb, unused (NOS) condition with no flaws that I could find. $120.