Photos by a real photographer won’t be available for another two weeks (patience, Iago, patience) but Mr S and I had a lovely time, high-heeled shoes excepted. The gowns were dramatic, the gentlemen dandy, and the dancing elegant, if bumpy at the start. There are some videos here, both of the assembled company dancing, and of the lovely minuet demonstration.
Selfie, and ready for bed!
I managed a phone photo just before I crashed into bed, and am generally satisfied with how the dressed-up laundress appeared. Clearly my laundry business is doing very, very well, or I have liberated some earrings from a client. One of the most challenging things about this event (aside from my over-thinking freak outs) was not having a persona to hold onto. We started reenacting as lower-class 18th century types, and spent some time as tenant farmers and maids. Mr S and I do not have clothes for the gentry, but can inch into the middling sorts when we want to.
That’s fine, and it’s comfortable– we’ve not yet really reached all the way down the lower sorts, either–but it does mean that when we’re presented with the opportunity to dress above our station, the need to really understand the new station kicks in, and delays the process.
I’ll finish that silk sacque someday, and sooner rather than later, but I’m glad I held off so I can really get the gown right, as well as the shoes, hair style, and other accessories.
Mr & Mrs Thomas Sandby. Watercolor by Paul Sandby. RCIN 917875, Royal Collection Trust.
On Saturday, Sew 18th Century and I went out for lunch and fabric shopping. Along the way, I brought up pinner aprons, and that I’d seen them in British prints. She said, “You should blog about that!” and I went back to check my sources. Fail! There was an English print after a French original, and that doesn’t count!
So I shelved that idea, and went about looking for more Paul Sandby images of soldiers and maids and tents, and found instead Mr and Mrs Thomas Sandby. Ahem. Pinner apron alert.
Fluke, right? Well, no, not exactly.
Lady Chambers and child. Watercolor by Paul Sandby, RCIN 914409. Royal Collection Trust.
Because here is Lady Chambers and child, with Lady Chambers in a pinner apron.
The thing to note, though, is that “apron” here is a decorative, almost ceremonial garment made of black silk, while the maid engaged in Domestick Employment is wearing a working garment of [probably white] linen.
Domestick employment, washing. Mezzotint by Richard Houston after Phillipe Mercier, 1736-1775. British Museum 1876,0708.23
Well, can I wear a pinner apron as a Continental army laundress or not? Probably not, though I will be going back through all the images of laundering I can find. It would be so useful and protective a garment!
No, instead, it looks as if the black silk pinner apron was a fashion adopted by the British upper class probably in imitation of the aprons worn by young girls. These fleeting, black silk accessories were probably adapted to some other use when the fashion had fallen from favor. (You could make a lot of mitts out of one of those.) Sadly, I don’t care enough about the elite to go chasing inventories and more images, but someone else can. I think I have seen a few other examples of this style, but cannot immediately place them. My sense is that these are not common.
I’m much more interested in laundresses and maids. Doesn’t she look sassy? We could call her Bridget.
A country girl, full-length, facing front, leaning against a fence & a tree. Watercolor by Paul Sandby. RCIN 914438. Royal Collection Trust
Another lot from the Sotheby’s American Folk Art sale is this pair of paintings by Jacob Maentel. (There’s an entire series of paintings by Maentel, all worth checking out.)
Particularly fun in this family portrait? The two little girls wearing dresses made of the same fabric. One of my former colleagues and co-conspirators always wanted to dress interpreters in clothes made of the same fabric, dresses, waistcoats and other items, as if we’d bought a sole bolt of fabric one year. Well, there it is, above: one length, two little gowns.
Lot 576, Sale N09106, “Nesmerian”
For my friend who makes hats, here is the portrait of Hatter John Mays of Schaeffertown, also painted by Jacob Maentel.
Top hats aplenty, bows on his shoes, and gold watch fobs. I’d say Mr Mays is doing quite well.
Ever on the track of laundresses and working women, I came upon The Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of Modern Painting, Volume 1 (of 4), by Richard Muther. I was rewarded with a laundress and a cook holding a spider. Daniel Chodowiecki, a German artist, seems to have been as drawn to the common people as Paul Sandby. The caveat of course is that is he German, so details may not always be correct for American interpretations (pinner aprons, for example).
Still, we have the classic washtub-on-a-table set up, and the laundress is barefoot, which makes very good sense, though my feet hurt just from thinking about standing barefoot on the stubble of the field at Saratoga.
Encampment of the Loyalists at Johnstown, a New Settlement, on the Banks of the River St. Lawrence in Canada, taken June 6th 1784, James Peachey.
Laundresses come with style, too, though I am asking myself, “Is that a fabulous hat, or is your head just in front of some balled-up, sleeping livestock?” Was is discernible is that her hair is down, and she is leaning on the washtub. The tent seams are also clearly visible, and she does have the iconic washtub on a table set up.
Encampment of the Loyalists at Johnstown, a New Settlement, on the Banks of the River St. Lawrence in Canada, taken June 6th 1784. James Peachey
In another detail of the same image, we have a woman who is clearly wearing a black bonnet, tending a kettle on a fire. Here’s yet another piece of evidence for the three sticks-two kettles-no matches set up, and for the tinned kettles being left to get black on the outside.
What is she wearing on her body? There’s a white (or a least white-grounded) kerchief, and what looks like a grey or drab petticoat. But is that a short gown, jacket or bed gown? I’d say jacket, mostly because of the fit, but it’s hard to say at this distance. Whatever word you care to use, she’s wearing a reddish-brown garment fitted to her torso that appears to have a side-back seam.
Once again, tent seams are visible. This tent, just like the one in the other detail, also has some large off-white item thrown over the end. Could it be a blanket, out to air in the sun?
I do also appreciate the short blue jacket/white trousers of the man or boy to the left of the woman, since I know a guy who possesses those clothes and prefers trousers to breeches. He appears to be drinking from a cup as he carries a kettle, presumably of fresh water.
Encampment of the Loyalists at Johnstown, a New Settlement, on the Banks of the River St. Lawrence in Canada, taken June 6th 1784, James Peachey.
Kirsten Hammerstrom 
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