Elena Kanagy-Loux
32.1 x 47.8 cm
Not For Sale
Elena Kanagy-Loux is a lace maker and textile historian. Her work in these fields bridges the gap between modern and historical making practices. She is working as Collections Specialist at the Antonio Ratti Textile Center at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She is portrayed wearing lace collar she crafted, a privilege not extended to early lace makers. Kanagy-Loux found inspiration for this specially commissioned collar in several examples of antique lace that illustrate the Old Testament story of the widow Judith beheading the Assyrian general Holofernes. While most of these historical examples are made of needle lace, Kanagy-Loux deliberately chose to craft her version in a style of bobbin lace inspired by twentieth-century central European lacemakers. The form of Kanagy-Loux’s piece evokes the pronounced scallops of Genoese bobbin-lace collars of the seventeenth century. Her decision to use red silk instead of the traditional white linen or undyed silk is a deliberate one—the dash of red at the wearer’s neck is at once a nod to the striking colorful accents of the historical pieces and a reminder of Holofernes’s ultimate fate.