Frivolous Friday: Flip your Lid

On February 5, 2016February 4, 2016 By kittycalashIn Clothing, Frivolous Friday, History4 Comments

Print. Drypoint by John Theodore Heins, Jr. 1747-1771. British Museum 1858,0417.362 — Drypoint by John Theodore Heins, Jr. British Museum 1858,0417.362

Bonnets. Who doesn’t like them? They’re the cupcake of costuming, just enough sugar to be delicious, not enough trouble to count. I know I have far too many, they fall from the hall shelf nearly every time I get my coat.

But I started asking myself questions about bonnets when a friend asked me questions about bonnets: shape, color, and how they’re worn (rakish angle? pulled down low?).

We’re planning on going to an event in March, and I’ve been thinking about head wear, especially bonnets. Now that the question’s been asked, I don’t want to randomly cram black silk taffeta on my head and call it a day: I’m back to “don’t know mind.” Time to start looking. So far, I’ve searched the Tate, the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery UK, the Lewis Walpole Library, the Yale Center for British Art, the Met, the V&A, and the BBC’s Your Paintings site.

I started at the British Museum. Here are the results for a collections search using the term bonnet and the production dates 1765-1772. Hmm. No classic black bonnet. Dammit, actually, because I really like mine.

Print made by James Caldwall, A Ladies Maid Purchasing a Leek, 1772, Line engraving and etching Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. B1977.14.11105 — James Caldwall, A Ladies Maid Purchasing a Leek, 1772, YCBA, B1977.14.11105

Yale Center for British Art, same search parameters. I know you know this print.

Man, this is a pain, right? Where are the bonnets? 1772 is actually too late for my purposes in this instance.

The Lewis Walpole Library Digital Collections lack a feature for limiting or sorting by date, but they tag bonnets in their prints. Still: no big black bonnets in early prints.

I’m starting to think it’s lampshade or saucer for the 1765-1770 period. You remember lampshade, don’t you? One of my post-operative slightly narcotized creations based in part on the Marquis of Granby (Relieving a Sick Soldier).

The Marquis of Granby (Relieving A Sick Soldier) Oil on canvas by Edward Penny after 1765 (c) Royal Academy of Arts

Lampshade seems pretty fashionable in 1760. There are more portraits at the National Portrait Gallery (UK), but bonnets are scarce in them, primarily, I suppose, because they are not indoor wear.

Anne (née Day), Lady Fenoulhet by Richard Purcell (Charles or Philip Corbutt), after Sir Joshua Reynolds, mezzotint, (1760) National Portrait Gallery UK D1939

Nelly O’Brien by Samuel Okey, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, mezzotint, circa 1765-1780 (circa 1762-1764) National Portrait Gallery UK D19911

Lady Fenoulhet is wearing a lampshade. Nelly O’Brien is wearing an interesting, more hat-like device. Her imprint is ca. 1765-1780, but other impressions are dated ca. 1760. The 1762-1764 seems plausible. But that’s still early for my purposes. The lampshade really is, too; Mrs Mary Smith of Portsmouth may be wearing one, but considering that the artist who drew this plate died in 1766, I think we can place this form in the 1750s to early 1760s. Lampshade is too early. The”Lady’s Maid buying a Leek” is too late.

Next, please.

Hot Topic

On February 3, 2016February 2, 2016 By kittycalashIn Art Rant, Clothing, History, Living History6 Comments

I’m of an age (none of your beeswax, thanks for asking) where most of the clothes in the shops are simply not for me. Not only am I picky about labor standards, fabric and construction quality, the styles aren’t for me. I’m too old. I create enough havoc walking (falling) down the street as it is that I do not need to look like the mid-life crisis I’m having involves a desperate search to recapture my youth through H & M or Hot Topic or whatever-the-kids-are-wearing clothing. I’ve achieved “a certain age,” and as with my everyday closet, my living history wardrobe has to reflect my age as well. Pity, really.

Following the Fashion. Hand colored etching by James Gillray, published by Hannah Humphrey, 1794. British Museum 1851,0901.706

But more’s the pity here: I don’t have a clear idea, really, how age was perceived in the various decades I interpret. I have a clearer idea of how different body shapes and class levels were perceived and taunted, though sometimes body shape is an analogue for age.

Is this my daughter Ann? Pen and ink print study by Samuel Hieronymus Grimm, 1774. British Museum 2011,7084.56

There’s a classic image that juxtaposes age and youth. Here’s how the British Museum describes this image:

‘Is this my Daughter Ann?’; satire on fashion. A street where, before a house [on the right], over the door of which the name ‘Love Joy’ is written, a sedan chair has been brought, in order to carry away a young lady, who, in a towering toupée, and other articles of fashionable attire of this period, is leaving the house in company with a young soldier, who caresses her as they go; she looks fondly at him. An old woman, in what was then an ‘old-fashioned’ costume is interposing to prevent the departure of the damsel. 1774

Okay… “An old woman, in what was then an ‘old-fashioned’ costume.” You will note that the old woman is wearing what we typically wear here in New England to represent everyday clothing for middling and lower sort American colonists for most of the 1770s. I don’t want to put too much stock in the cataloger’s description, because I’m not sure that print curators or curatorial assistants always know as much about material culture as they think they do. And we know that six weeks is not six years when it comes to transmitting fashion changes and updates across an ocean. I think “old fashioned” might not be exactly or entirely right as a descriptive phrase.

What does the old woman’s clothing really signify? That she’s rural and not urban? That’s she’s poor? That she’s old? How ‘old fashioned’ is that costume by 1774… in a context other than London courtesan couture? And how do we translate the clues we have trouble deciphering into a dress code for living history?

Well, happily, there’s a verse under the image in this print.

Is this my Daughter Ann

The Matron thus Surprised exclaims,
And the deluded Fair One Blames
But had the Mother been as Charming

She had Thought the Mutual sport no harm.
This Moral’s an undoubted Truth
Age envies Still the Joys of Youth

So this print is not about fashion. It’s about sex. (Well, duh. You were wondering when I’d bring that up.) It’s also, in a way, about hypocrisy, isn’t it? But the verse gives us the clue that the mother’s clothes are meant to be matronly. “Conservative because of her age” might be a better descriptive phrase than “old fashioned” in that catalog record.

But does that mean that those of us who have achieved “a certain age” might also consider whether we, too, should be dressing in a more “conservative because of her age” style? I don’t really know.

But look here: Zoffany, ca. 1762.

David Garrick and Mary Bradshaw in David Garrick's "The Farmer's Return". Johann Zoffany, ca.1762. YCBA B1981.25.731 — David Garrick and Mary Bradshaw in David Garrick’s “The Farmer’s Return”. Johann Zoffany, ca.1762. YCBA B1981.25.731

Here we’re looking at a rural woman ten to twelve years before “My daughter Ann.” The costumes are very similar; maybe the mother in Ann really is just old fashioned.

Here’s another version of “My daughter Ann,” this time more clearly fashion focused, without the sexual overtones.

Print made by Francis E. Adams, active ca.1760–1775, British, Heyday! Is This My Daughter Anne!, 1773, Mezzotint and etching on medium, moderately textured, cream laid paper, YCBA, B1970.3.820

Yale helpfully provides a transcription of the verse at the bottom:

HEYDAY! Is this my DAUGHTER ANNE! | Heyday! the country Matron in surprize, | Is this my Daughter thus bedizell’d? cries. | To Town she lately went a Damsel plain: | But scarcely now is to be known again. | That City to its Vanities has brought her, | And banish’d the good Housewifery I taught her. | Why, Child you’ll frighten here our honest People: | They’ll say you’ve on your Head a London Steeple.

My best guess is that this print is skewering both Anne and her mother: Anne, for being so outlandishly fashion-forward, and her mother, for being so far behind. But again, that’s only a guess.

Spring Spencers

On February 1, 2016January 29, 2016 By kittycalashIn History, Literature5 Comments

Spencers are not unlike bonnets, in my mind. They’re more work than a bonnet, sure, but compared to the layer cake that is an English gown, a Spencer is a batch of cupcakes.

I’ve fondled more silks than I may care to admit (oh, remnant table, how I love thee), and often picked up and put down a small length because it was patterned. Not enough for a gown, just enough for a Spencer. But Spencers are always solid.

No, they’re not.

Allegorical Wood-Cut, with Patterns of British Manufactures. May, 1815. Ackermans's Repository of Arts, etc. Volume 13. — Allegorical Wood-Cut, with Patterns of British Manufactures. May, 1815. Ackermans’s Repository of Arts, etc. Volume 13.

It’s a Homer-quality forehead-slapping moment.

Caption, Allegorical Wood-Cut of British Manufactures. Ackermans's Repository of Arts, etc. Volume 13, May, 1815. page 298 — Caption, Allegorical Wood-Cut of British Manufactures. Ackermans’s Repository of Arts, etc. Volume 13, May, 1815. page 298

Not only are there extant cotton roller-print Spencers, and wild printed cotton Spencer ensembles in North American collections, there’s print evidence of patterned silks for Spencers. Somehow, until I came across this plate and the description in Ackermann’s, I could not make the leap from cotton to silk.

Despite the existence of this.

My sole defense is that one patterned Spencer is still a zebra among horses.

But additional evidence, in the form of recommendations for spring in Ackermann’s? The zebra’s looking a little more like a horse.

Want more Ackermann’s? You know you do. The links are better sorted here.

Many, many thanks to Mr B for the tip!

Contextualize This*

On November 26, 2015December 2, 2015 By kittycalashIn Events, Fail, History, Living History, Reenacting6 Comments

Right on, Mr. Hiwell: The music of the Army being in general very bad is a post I could never write, because I lack the detailed knowledge, or the desire to acquire music-specific knowledge (just as Mr Hiwell could give two rats’ about stay-making details, or the subtleties of stew). But here’s the gist of his post, on which I wish to elaborate, and which has been touched on elsewhere: You’re Doing It Wrong.

Let’s take this:

I’m tired of going to events, knowing all the camp duties fifers and drummers played from sunrise to sunset and never playing a single one of them besides Drummer’s Call and Assembly.

One of my favorite hobby horses: lack of discipline and camps that look like that Infamous Catalog just puked on a field. Why on earth can we not see tents are set up properly, in rows, with appropriate numbers of kitchens instead of wobbly lines, marquee tents that disgorge giggling teenage girls in bodices, and enough iron to make the scrap man sing with joy?

But even then, even if people are too lazy or stubborn to leave stuff at home, why can’t a camp run the way it would’ve? There’s ample documentation on which to draw. Quite aside from the voluminous papers of General Washington and General Greene, and the massive archives in Britain, every regiment had orderly books, of which many survive. They’re hilarious reading and full of things to do.

Most reenactments are boring. Well, so was army life. The 10th Massachusetts was constantly in trouble up on the Hudson late in war, and the Marshall book at the Society of the Cincinnati contains the proof.

Here’s something fun to do: inspection. Huts, cabins, tents: they all needed to be kept neat., and apparently weren’t.

Some part of the Camp and about the long Barracks in particular is relaxing into nastiness. Regimental QuarterMasters have been ordered to have them Clean and keep them so. An Officer of each Company has been ordered to visit the Barracks every day and to Confine & Report those who throw bones of meat Pot Liquor or filth of any kind near the Barracks. Yet all this has been done and no report has been made. it is hatefull to General Howe to Reitterate orders as it ought to be shamefull those who make it necessary.

Don’t like to clean, prefer cooking? Marching?

Regimnl Orders June 6th 1782

the Regiment will turn out to Morrow Morning at the Beating of the Revelee and to March By Six oClock they are to pack there clothing and kook there provisions this Evening when they have arivd on the Ground for Encamping the officer commanding on the Spot will order a partry if Forty men from the Regiment a Capt and two Sub’s to Command them to Return to the Encampment in order to asist in Bringin on the Baggage the Soldiers are to Carry there kittles in there hands and are to Leave there arms and pakes &c at the New Encampment any Soldier who is found Plundering another pack is to be tyd up and punished with out Trial..

Tyd up and punished without Trial. You know there’s a guy who’s up for that in every unit.

And lest you think that there’s nothing for women in these books, let me assure you, there is:

Regimental Orders, July 23rd 1782

At a Regimental Court Martial whereof Capt Francis is president, Briget Conner a Woman Belonging to the 10th Massachusetts Regiment was tried for purchesing a publick Shurt from a Soldier in Sd. Regiment found Guilty and Sentanced to Return the Shurt to the person from whom she purshest it and loos what She gav for the Shurt.

The Colo approves the opinion of the Court and orders it to take place Immediately

Regimental orders July 25th 1782

Bridget Conner a woman Belonging to the 10th Massachusetts Regiment is Directed to Leave Camp Between this and to Morrow Morning at Roal Call for her Insolence to the officers of sd Regiment on pane of Being Treated with Severity

This is easy, people. Authenticity, accuracy, and Stuff to Do increases exponentially if you use documentation to recreate a “normal” day in either army. There’s Cuthbertson, for example.

There’s Lochee, if you want to get in tents. And orderly book after orderly book. And if I, a mere woman, can find these things, there is no excuse for you men not to read, absorb, and use these sources well.

Inspections. Returns. Reports. There’s so much to do in a day, and running a camp or a barracks by the regulations would give everyone so much more to interpret, and begin to present real history instead of merely heritage. This is where the real splits are going to come, and sooner than you think. It won’t be about uniform details, or stitch and thread counts, but about actually engaging historical interpretation. If interpreters aren’t engaged, the public won’t be either.

*If you know me, you know what the next word is.

Kirsten Hammerstrom

Tag: Research

Frivolous Friday: Flip your Lid

Hot Topic

Spring Spencers

Contextualize This*