19th Century Embroidered Eyelet Lace Samples: Over-sized, Double-sided Page (13 Samples) animal shaped with a very otherworldly sort

with a very otherworldly sort of glow to the image

Hard not to get sucked into this once one begins reading

And while I took it for a planter

with a fair number of tiny bubbles in the glass) and the whimsy date to the late 19th century or so

Looks like he once have had a rope tail

19th Century Embroidered Eyelet Lace Samples: Over-sized, Double-sided Page (13 Samples) animal shaped with a very otherworldly sortI believe this is French and dates to the 1870s 80s; the closest example I could find, down to the manner of the numbering, is a whole sample book of eyelet lace in the collection of the Met, though those samples were more neatly trimmed than these! The dealer I purchased this page from described them as swatches of petticoat lace, and indeed that would be a common use for embroidered cotton eyelet lace like this. This of course is much better in hand