---
title: "Rose point"
description: "Rose point is Venetian needle lace worked in high relief, with rounded, lobed scrolls and flowers joined by a ground of decorated bars."
type: Glossary
url: https://teazle.art/glossary/rose-point
published: 2026-10-19
updated: 2026-10-19
author: "The Teazle editors"
---

# Rose point

*Rose point is Venetian needle lace worked in high relief, with rounded, lobed scrolls and flowers joined by a ground of decorated bars.*

Rose point is a Venetian [needle lace](https://teazle.art/glossary/needle-lace.md) in which the design stands up from the surface. Margaret Jourdain's 1908 handbook for collectors defines it, in its glossary, as needlepoint lace with raised work upon it, and in the text separates it from the flatter punto in aria by three features: a highly conventional design, high relief, and elaborate [bars](https://teazle.art/glossary/bride-lace.md).

## How is the relief made?

Jourdain explains that the lacemaker laid down a pad of coarse threads, thicker or thinner according to the relief wanted, and covered it with close buttonhole stitches. A bundle of threads naturally takes an unbroken curve, which she gives as the reason for the almost always rounded and lobed forms of the ornament. The design is a foliated scroll with a flower based on the pomegranate, so conventionalized that the fruit is hardly recognizable.

## Which kinds are there?

Mrs. Bury Palliser's history lists other varieties of so-called rose point: punto neve, or [point de neige](https://teazle.art/glossary/point-de-neige.md), with a ground of starred threads that resemble snowflakes, and coral point, a small irregular pattern supposed to be copied from coral. Mrs. F. Nevill Jackson, in 1900, describes the rose points of Venice, Spain and Milan in double and triple relief as looking like carved ivory in richness.

Because the bars wear out sooner than the thick raised ornament, they are the part a restorer replaced, which is why a rose point collar is a good piece to examine for later repairs.


## Sources

1. [Old Lace: A Handbook for Collectors (1908), Margaret Jourdain](https://archive.org/details/oldlacehacol00jourdain). Archive.org scan of the 1908 edition
2. [History of Lace (rev. ed. 1902), Mrs. Bury Palliser](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57009). Project Gutenberg, ebook 57009
3. [A History of Hand-Made Lace (1900), Mrs. F. Nevill Jackson](https://archive.org/details/historyofhandmad00jackrich). Archive.org scan of the 1900 edition

Canonical: https://teazle.art/glossary/rose-point