The Regency's Duke of Cambridge

Duke of Cambridge 1806

Loretta reports:

Having recently reported on the present Duke of Sussex and the previous holder of that title, I thought it made sense to look at the man who last held Prince William’s title, Duke of Cambridge.

As in Prince Harry’s case, Prince Adolphus Frederick, the previous Duke of Cambridge (1774-1850), lived during the Regency and Victorian eras, and his life shows some parallels to Prince William’s. Prince Adolphus served in the military, was generally well-liked—including by his father, George III, who wasn’t crazy about his older sons. This royal duke, too, married a beautiful young woman, and had three children

With the death of the Princess Charlotte in 1817, he, like his other brothers, was obliged to find a wife. Of the royal dukes, Peter Pindar wrote:

Agog are all, both old and young
    Warmed with desire to be prolific
And prompt with resolution strong
    To fight in Hyman’s war terrific.

Within two weeks of his niece’s death, he sent a marriage proposal to the Princess Augusta, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel’s youngest daughter. She was twenty years old and  beautiful.

“This was the first of the three Royal marriages since Princess Charlotte married Prince Leopold that roused the romantic enthusiasm of the British public* ... “The Duke and Duchess had only to show themselves to be loudly cheered. The first Sunday after their arrival in England they were recognized strolling together in Hyde Park, and were at once surrounded and jostled by a large crowd, cheering and yelling ... On another occasion they were recognized in their carriage outside the famous City jewelers, Rundle and Bridge, and a great crowd came yelling round them, so that it was twenty minutes before their coachman dared move.”

Augusta, Duchess of Cambridge, 1818

Their first son, born in March 1819, was christened George, and was in line for the throne until Victoria was born, a few months later.

“And if the English public had good reason to be satisfied with the marriage, so had the Duke of Cambridge. He wrote of himself when he was first married: ‘I really believe that on the surface of the globe there does not exist so happy a Being as myself ... and Heaven grant that I may be deserving of it and not forfeit my happiness by any misconduct.’”

He became rather eccentric in later life—among other things, having gone deaf, he sat in front of the church and kept up a running, plainly audible, commentary—and was on very bad terms with Queen Victoria during her early years on the throne. But in a time of rampant anti-Semitism, he remained sympathetic to Jews. He was the only one of George III’s sons who lived within his income. “He was certainly most generous with his time, and equally generous with his money to an almost incredible number of charitable causes.”

Quotations and other information from Roger Fulford’s Royal Dukes.

*Let’s just say that the other couples were rather less attractive.
Images: E. Harding, Duke of Cambridge 1806; Sir William Beechey, Augusta, Duchess of Cambridge, 1818.

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Regency Satire: The Triumph of the Whale

Cruikshank, The Prince of Whales 1812

Loretta reports:

On this date in 1812 the Examiner published Charles Lamb’s poem “The Triumph of the Whale,” which inspired this George Cruikshank satirical print of 1 May 1812. The image appeared in Cruikshank's satirical magazine, The Scourge.
 
The caricature and poem about the then Prince Regent (later King George IV) remind us all that mocking the great and powerful, in picture and print (and these days, in internet memes), is nothing new. Given the libel and sedition laws of the time, it’s amazing what Regency satirists got away with. And let’s not forget one of the Privileges of Peers I reported on a while back:

“3. To secure the honour of, and prevent the spreading of any scandal upon peers, or any great officer of the realm, by reports, there is an express law, called scandalum magnatum, by which any man convicted of making a scandalous report against a peer of the realm (though true) is condemned to an arbitrary fine, and to remain in custody till the same be paid.”

Scandalum magnatum notwithstanding, the faces in this caricature would have been familiar to the audience of the time, and everybody would understand the political implications. We, however, need a translation, which the Brighton Museums website provides succinctly:

“Portrayed as a whale in a ‘Sea of Politics’ George spouts the ‘Liquor of Oblivion’ on playwright and Whig supporter Richard Sheridan, and blows the ‘Dew of favour’ on Spencer Perceval the Tory Prime Minister. The prince ignores his former lover, Mrs Fitzherbert, and looks lovingly at his mistress Lady Hertford, who is shown next to her cuckold husband.”

The figures on the right—the Tories—viewed as the fat cats of the time, expect to profit further by the Regent’s decision to shun his Whig associates. The Marquess of Hertford is wearing cuckold horns. You can read a much more detailed description at the British Museum website (please click on "More" for the full description and check out the curator's comments as well). Clearly, this is pretty strong stuff, though not as strong, I think, as Lamb’s poem.

 
The 1812 blog offers a concise summary of Charles Lamb’s life and the poem. Most of the references are clear enough, although I haven't yet figured out why the muse Lamb summons is Io, one of Zeus’s many loves, who was transformed into a white heifer.

Update: As I hoped, a reader provided the following clarification—

"It's a song. 'Io' is an exclamation you find in Latin songs, and probably in Roman life as well, but spoken words don't survive. It means something like 'Hurray' or even 'Yay'.
In my country a Latin student song still survives. Its first line is 'Io vivat' which translates to 'Hurray, long live'. It dates to the days when all subjects at the universities were taught in Latin."

These pages are from The Poetical Works of Bowles, Lamb, and Hartley Coleridge Selected 1887

Image: George Cruikshank, The Prince of Whales, from the Scourge of 1 May 1812.
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From the Archives: Dressing the Regency-Era Plus-Size Lady

1802 British Vessels

Loretta reports:

The following questions about Regency era fashions for plus-size ladies appeared in the comments for my Fashions of May 1810 post:


“These historic illustrations are very pretty but it seems they do the same injustice that modern day models do. They portray ultra thin women. That might be okay for even an average size woman but what was the 'larger' lady to do? How was she supposed to know what a particular fashion would look like on her? Are there any illustrations of fashions for 'fat ladies'?”

The illustration at top is typical of Regency images of women.  As Susan pointed out in The Myth of the Regency Sylph, a plumper ideal of beauty (e.g, "A First Rate" in the print) held sway than what appears in fashion plates.  However, this doesn’t mean that the caricaturists didn't mock fat women.  The era was misogynistic to a horrifying degree.  Still, as the image below demonstrates, the caricaturists made fun of fat men, too, even when the fat man was the Prince of Wales.  But satirical prints were equal opportunity mockers, ridiculing skinny people as well. 

Fashion illustration, then and now, can be as exaggerated as caricatures, and thin women prevail—though, as slim as the women in my 1810 fashion post are, they’re certainly not the size 00 we see in today’s fashion magazines.  The less curve you have to draw around, the easier to display a dress design, apparently.

Inconveniences of a Crowded Drawing Room

So what did the not-sylphlike ladies do?  Anyone aspiring to the kinds of fashions shown in, say, Ackermann’s Repository or La Belle Assemblée, would have her clothes made by a dressmaker.  This person, known by the 1830s as a modiste, would not only make the clothes but, to the extent the client permitted, act as stylist as well.  A dressmaker who wanted a successful business would take care to dress her client in the most flattering way, a point I do try to get across in my Dressmaker series.  (The third book, Vixen in Velvet, directly addresses the challenges of dressing the less-than-fashionably-ideal figure.)

Illustration  credits:
Top: British Vessels. Described for the Use of Country Gentlemen,1802, courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.  Bottom: George Cruikshank, Inconveniences of a Crowded Drawing Room, courtesy Wikipedia.

Friday Video: Jewelry & Its Stories at the V&A

Loretta reports:

A while back, Susan/Isabella posted a blog about a jewelry reward the Prince Regent gave to the women he’d entrusted with keeping his daughter, the Princess Charlotte, from running amok.

Today’s video spotlights these peridots as well as revealing the letter’s contents—and can’t you just picture the conditions under which the letter was written? In a few cryptic words, the writer conjures quite a scene—at least in this writer’s mind.

This isn’t the V&A jewelry collection's only story. The video features several other pieces, including some worn by Catherine the Great. I was particularly intrigued by the tale of how one modern piece was created.

Readers who receive our blog via email might see a rectangle, square, or nothing where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.

Carlton House's Conservatory

Carlton House Conservatory 1811

Loretta reports:

Regency aficionados will recognize the famous 19 June “entertainment” referred to in this description of the Prince Regent’s Conservatory.

What I wanted to point out was the lack of plants in the picture. Apparently, this isn’t just a function of the artist’s wanting to show the space without a lot of trees and flowers in the way. I recall reading somewhere (but have not been able to find the source) that plants were moved into and out of the conservatory as needed. One assumes, consequently, that it didn’t truly house a horticultural collection, in the way we think of conservatories doing. If you have further information about this, please feel free to comment.

Conservatory description

Conservatory description cont'd

For more images of the long-vanished Carlton House, you might want to take a look at David Watkins’s The Royal Interiors of Regency England: from watercolours first published by W.H. Pyne in 1817-20.

You can see some of the images, from the Pyne’s Royal Residences, online here and here.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Fashions for February 1812

Ball Dress February 1812

Loretta reports:

Though I took a detour to 1836 for last month's fashion plate, in order to illustrate my latest book, I’m hoping this year to show you the evolution of style, decade by decade. Of course, if something irresistibly fabulous turns up in the “wrong” era, we’ll make another detour.

But today we’re looking at Regency—interpreting the term very narrowly this time as the period from 1811 to 1820, when the Prince of Wales became Prince Regent because the reigning monarch, King George III, was too ill to rule. (Social historians and others, however, tend to refer to a broader period, which Wikipedia concisely summarizes here, in the second paragraph.)

Walking Dress February 1812

These two dresses, though, fall smack dab into the Prince Regent’s time, with the classic vertical muslin styles we associate with Pride and Prejudice, and which happen to be illustrated in especially beautiful prints in Ackermann’s Repository.

Dress Description February 1812

I would call your attention to the description of the hat, which I would love to see in real life.




 
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Mr. Curtis's Acoustic Chair

Curtis's Acoustic Chair

Loretta reports:

While researching another topic entirely, I came upon Mr. Curtis’s Acoustic Chair. This is another of the items that were familiar enough to people at the time to become the subject of witticisms, while being completely new to me.

“Mr. Curtis, about 1830, by the aid of several mechanics, brought out his acoustic chair, which was stated to possess such wondrous power, that His Majesty could sit in his palace, at Windsor, and hear communications from his ministers at Whitehall. Whether our present Sovereign does not require her ministers to keep at such a distance, and, therefore, has not patronized Mr. Curtis's acoustic chair, or whatever other cause may have operated, probably will never be known, but that gentleman's name does not appear to be continued in the list of Her Majesty's household.”— William Wright, A Few Minutes' Advice to Deaf Persons (1839)

Mr. William Mullinger Higgins’s Philosophy of Sound and Musical Composition (1838), whose relevant pages I show above, contains the shortest and easiest-to-understand explanation I came upon.

You can learn more of the technical details in the Mechanics’ Magazine of January 14, 1837 here.

Another illustration (of the chair at home) and explanation appeared in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction on 18 February 1837 here.

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Astley's Amphitheatre: What's Playing in October 1811

Astley's, from the Microcosm

Loretta reports:

In my third Dressmakers book, Vixen in Velvet, the hero takes the heroine to Astley’s Royal Circus. For the performance, I used descriptions from the 1830s, when Andrew Ducrow was manager, and Miss Woolford was the beloved equestrienne.

This critique below of an Astley’s performance comes from a generation earlier, when King George IV was the Prince Regent. It’s the sort of show Jane Austen might have seen.

Astley's Show 1811

You can learn more about Astley’s here at Jane Austen’s World as well as at the Victoria and Albert Museum, whose account of Astley’s covers Andrew Ducrow’s and Miss Woolford’s time as well as the interesting story of a famous equestrienne of the Victorian era.

Astley's Show 1811

As always, the blog Spitalfields Life has a larger, crisper, more beautifully colored version of the above illustration (please scroll down) from Ackermann’s Microcosm of London, originally published in 1808-10.






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Friday Video: Horrible Histories and George IV's Not-So-Bad News

Isabella reporting,

We haven't had a Friday Video from the Horrible Histories crew for a while. Here's one of our favorites: George IV receiving news that, to him, isn't nearly as bad as it should be. It's easy to imagine the real George's reaction probably wasn't much better.

He probably believed he had good reason, too. This video isn't far from the historical mark (always the case with Horrible Histories.) As most of our readers already know, George IV (1762-1830) did have to wait most of his life to claim the crown; his father, George III was 82 when he died, and George IV himself was nearly 60. The fact that the younger George had also served as Regent while his father suffered from his final mental illness likely only made him more impatient. While he waited to become king, he did in fact lead a life filled with complicated womanizing, gormandizing, and spending, as the video describes. He was not a well-regarded monarch - not because he was fat (thought that did make him an easy target for the viciously barbed caricaturists of the day), but because he was self-indulgent, extravagant, and irresponsible.

But the video is amusing....

A Walk In London In 1807

Cheapside 1813

Loretta reports:

I’ve offered excerpts from Robert Southey's Letters from England* before (here). This one notes interesting pedestrian behavior. Also, those of us who lament the destruction of Carlton House will learn that not everybody loved it.

The distance [westward to St. James’s Palace]was considerable: the way, after getting into the main streets, tolerably straight. There were not many passers in the by-streets; but when I reached Cheapside the crowd completely astonished me. On each side of the way were two uninterrupted streams of people, one going east, the other west. At first I thought some extraordinary occasion must have collected such a concourse; but I soon perceived it was only the usual course of business. They moved on in two regular counter currents, and the rapidity with which they moved was as remarkable as their numbers ... Nobody was loitering to look at the beautiful things in the shop windows; none were stopping to converse, every one was in haste, yet no one in a hurry; the quickest possible step seemed to be the natural pace. The carriages were numerous in proportion, and were driven with answerable velocity.

If possible, I was still more astonished at the opulence and splendor of the shops: drapers, stationers, confectioners, pastry cooks, seal-cutters, silver-smiths, booksellers, print-sellers, hosiers, fruiterers, china-sellers,—one close to another, without intermission, a shop to every house, street after street, and mile after mile; the articles themselves so beautiful, and so beautifully arranged, that if they who passed by me had had leisure to observe any thing, they might have known me to be a foreigner by the frequent stands which I made to admire them. Nothing which I had seen in the country had prepared me for such a display of splendour ...
I went on to the palaces of the Prince of Wales, and of the King, which stand near each other in a street called Pall Mall. The game from whence this name is derived is no longer known in England.

The Prince of Wales's palace is no favourable specimen of English

Carlton House 1811

architecture. Before the house are thirty columns planted in a row, two and two, supporting nothing but a common entablature, which connects them. As they serve for neither ornament nor use, a stranger might be puzzled to know by what accident they came there; but the truth is, that these people have more money than taste, and are satisfied with any absurdity if it has but the merit of being new.

*Online at Internet Archive Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3.

Images:
Cheapside, from Ackermann's Repository for 1813
Carlton House, from Ackermann's Repository for 1811

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Rude Songs of the Regency: The Plenipotentiary (from the archives)

The Plenipotentiary

Loretta reports:

Thanks to Vic Gatrell’s, City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London,* I was aware that the Prince of Wales (later the Prince Regent, then King George IV) bought satirical prints in vast quantities.  Every day he got a batch, to keep him in touch with public opinion.

It’s a miracle this collection survived.  Other historical documents did not:  “In a fit of witless vandalism in 1913, George V, his queen and his secretary one evening sat in a parlour at Windsor and systematically burned the contents of thirty-seven boxes of George IV’s love letters . . . on the grounds that George was ‘the meanest and vilest of reprobates’.”  King George V later sold 9,900 of his ancestor’s prints to the Library of Congress—to pay for his stamp collection.

Recently I made another interesting discovery:  Our Prinny’s favorite bard was Captain Charles Morris (1744-1838), to whom he paid a £200 annuity. Morris’s poems and songs were famous, reprinted repeatedly in collections such as The Festival of Anacreon, Containing a Collection of Modern Songs, written for the Anacreontic Society,***the Beef-Steak and Humbug Clubs (8th ed. c. 1810); and many, many others, including a collection the poet Robert Burns published in 1799.

A sample of Morris’s lyric powers: 

THE PLENIPOTENTIARY

The Dey of Algiers, when afraid of his ears,
A messenger sent to the Court, sir,
As he knew in our state the women had weight,
He chose one well hung for the sport, sir.
He searched the Divan till he found out a man,
Whose b******s were heavy and hairy,
And he lately came, o'er from the Barbary shore,
As the great Plenipotentiary.

. . .
When to England he came, with his p***k in a flame,
He shewed it his Hostess on landing,
Who spread its renown thro' all parts of the town,
As a pintle past all understanding.
So much there was said of its snout and its head,
That they called it the great Janissary:
Not a lady could sleep till she got a sly peep
At the great Plenipotentiary.

These are some of the more delicate verses.  You can read one version of the full poem here on page 36, or choose a version from here. Longtime 2NHG readers may recall a similarly bawdy epic by Lord Rochester.

*My quotations are from the Gatrell book.
**See a recent post for an illustration of a society members' meeting.
Illustration: Cruikshank, A Peep at the Plenipo-!!! Courtesy of The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.

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Dine Like George IV & Mrs. Fitzherbert

Isabella reporting,

As Nerdy History Girls, we're always on the search for historical this-and-that to share with you. Museums, historical societies, and other public collections are our favorite hunting grounds, but auction houses, too, can often provide unique things worth sharing. Auctions often feature fine art and other pieces that are only briefly in the public eye; they're put up for sale by one private collector, then bought by another, then disappear once again.

This fantastic centerpiece for a dining table may soon fall into that category. Currently owned by a private collector, it's part of a large assembled table service from the early 19thc. that will be auctioned this week by Skinner, Inc in Boston.

Standing an impressive 32 inches high (without candles!), the centerpiece is made of ormolu, a bronze alloy that was coated with a high-carat gold-mercury amalgam. Also known as gilt bronze, ormolu was popular in the 18th-19thc. for its opulence. It had all the flash of pure gold, but was less costly and substantial than all gold or gold over silver, and could be cast into all kinds of fanciful, showy shapes like this French tureen.

Opulence in dining was definitely on the upswing in the late 18thc. Most modern Americans eat at least one take-out meal a day, usually hastily consumed at the desk or in front of a TV or computer. To affluent Georgians, however, the last meal of the day was meant for lengthy display as well as lavish sustenance. Not only did the number of silver spoons, knives, and forks begin to increase, but decorative table pieces proliferated as well.  Everything was calculated to display the wealth and taste of the host and hostess, and impress their guests.

There was even a fashionable change in how food was served, moving away from à la française (similar to modern family style service), where all the meal's dishes appeared on the table at once, to à la russe, where food was brought to the table by servants in courses. Sevice à la russe offered more table-space for decorative pieces like this centerpiece, as well as more wealth on display in the form of additional liveried footmen hurrying back and forth from the kitchen.

The design of this centerpiece is in the latest fashion. Not only are the trio of bacchante with grapes in the best classical tradition, but the three sphinx supporting the base reflect the new popularity of Egyptian motifs, spurred on both by recent archaeological discoveries and by Napoleon's Egyptian campaigns.

This centerpiece has several important names associated to it that many Regency fans will recognize. The centerpiece was made by the London firm of Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, the most celebrated jewelers and goldsmiths of the era. It's also inscribed with the Royal coat of arms.  The provenance provided to the current owner states in part that the centerpiece was "formerly the property of a Nobleman; given by George IV to Mrs. Fitzherbert." It's easy to imagine Prinny approving those three half-clad female figures holding the grapevine wreath and glass dish.

In addition to this centerpiece, the auction will include a pair of six-light candelabra, a pair of three-tier etageres,  a pair of brûle-parfums (incense burners), and a surtout de table, a long mirrored centerpiece to reflect everything else. But you'll need deep pockets to dine like Regency royalty: the total pre-sale estimates for these pieces is about $42,000, and they will likely go for much more.

Update: The centerpiece did in fact go for more than the starting estimate of $8,000 - much more. At auction on July 18, it fetched an impressive $38,130. Prinny would be proud.

Photograph courtesy of Skinner, Inc.

Fashions for July 1810, a Strange Contrast

1810 Ball Dress

July 1810 Court Dress

1810 Ball Dress description

Loretta reports:

Throughout the earliest part of the 1800s until 1820, when the Prince of Wales (later Prince Regent*) became King George IV and changed the rules, ladies had to wear a very strange fashion for Royal Court occasions.

While court dress was quite formal, it wasn’t like normal formal dress, as you can see when you compare these two fashion plates.

Since author Candice Hern offers a beautiful explanation of court dress here at her website, I will leave it to her, while I leave you to ponder what hoops did to the slim silhouette we associate with Regency dress.

1810 Court Dress description

Images: The Ball Dress is from Ackermann's Repository for July 1810, courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art via the Internet Archive. The Court Dress is courtesy the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (the Google Books edition of La Belle Assemblée, where I found the description, had only a black and white plate.)

*“Regency” strictly interpreted, refers to the time he was Prince Regent, when his father, King George III, was too ill to carry out his duties as monarch. Many social historians, however, use the term Regency to cover a much broader period, often from 1800 to 1837, when Victoria became queen, and ushered in the Victorian period.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will allow you to read at the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

From the Archives: For Royal Relaxing: The Prince of Wales Banyan, c. 1785

Isabella reporting,

Because today is a travel day for me, I'm sharing one of my favorite posts from our archives, featuring a banyan, or dressing gown, worn by a stylish English prince.

In 2013, I had the great good fortune to see the exhibition Artist/Rebel/Dandy: Men of Fashion at the RISD Museum in Providence, RI.

Men's wear is often sadly under-represented in fashion collections, making this exhibition of historical and contemporary male clothing that made a bold personal statement for the wearer even more exciting (at least for Nerdy History People, anyway.) There was one room after another of fantastic clothes, from the beautiful linen shirts favored by Beau Brummell to Fred Astaire's tuxedo to Andy Warhol's paint-splattered Ferragamo oxfords.

While the exhibition has long since closed, highlights are still on line here, and the splendid hardcover companion book is available here.

One of the special pieces for me was this 18th c. banyan once worn by George IV (1762-1830) while he was Prince of Wales. (The banyan was making a rare appearance state-side, on loan from the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery.) Banyans were a kind of dressing-gown or robe worn by Georgian gentlemen as informal attire (for more information and other examples, see our blogs here, here, and here.) The elaborately patterned cotton chintz would not only have been comfortable - a welcome break from the formal silks of court life - but as a costly textile imported from India, the cotton would also have made a luxurious statement fit for a royal prince.

This banyan was quilted for extra warmth, and the braided closures and high collar, left, add to its exotic appeal. We tend to think of George IV in his later portly days as the Prince Regent, but this banyan, made between 1780-1790, proves that he cut a much less substantial figure as a young man in his twenties – although apparently there are interior panels that prove that the banyan was let out over time to accommodate his growing girth.

I particularly liked the quote that accompanied the banyan. Attributed to George "Beau" Brummell, it perfectly sums up the life around the Prince of Wales and his circle in late 18th c. Brighton, with young gentlemen elegantly lounging in banyans like this one: "Come to Brighton, my dear fellow. Let us be off tomorrow; we'll eat currant-tart, and live in chintz and salt-water."

Banyan, maker unrecorded, c. 1780-90. From the collection of Brighton Museum & Art Gallery. Top photo: RISD Museum. Lower photo: Brighton & Hove Museum.

A barouche for 1820

Barouche

Loretta reports:

Those who’ve read Pride & Prejudice may recall Lady Catherine’s offering to take Elizabeth partway home in her barouche.

The one illustrated is a somewhat more modern version of Lady Catherine’s vehicle, but the overall principles remain the same.  Here you can see a barouche in recent use.You can find out more about the Russian Droschki mentioned here.

Barouche description

Images from January 1820 Ackermann's Repository, courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art, via Internet Archive.

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Princess Charlotte's House

Warwick House

Loretta reports:

This entry from Ackermann’s Repository for December 1811 intrigued me for a couple of reasons.  One was “the simple and even homely” appearance of Princess Charlotte’s residence.  Pretty striking, considering the grandeur of her father’s digs at Carlton House, not to mention his Royal Pavilion at Brighton or what he made of Buckingham House.  (His "improvements" of the latter continued throughout his successor's reign.) Second was, Where the heck was it? Close to Carlton House, apparently.  If you look at this map, you’ll see Warwick Street.  So it’s somewhere in there.

A little more sleuthing will probably pinpoint it, but

Warwick House description

my initial map searching hasn’t cleared things up.  It'll have to wait for another blog post when I have more time.  In any event, Warwick House apparently came down when Carlton House did, in 1826-27, although rumors of impending destruction appeared at least as early as 1818, as you can read here in Leigh Hunt’s Examiner.



Images courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art via Internet Archive.

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Fashions for November 1810

Half Dress

Loretta reports:

This month’s fashion plates, from Ackermann’s Repository for 1810, show the high-waisted, “classical” style we usually associate with the Regency—although, strictly speaking, the Prince of Wales (later, King George IV) did not become Prince Regent until the following year.  However, social history, art, & architecture scholars generally use the term to cover a broader span, from about 1800 until Victoria came to the throne in 1837.  To save a lot of defining, qualifications, and the ensuing arguments pro and con, I try to stick with “early 19th century.”

Whatever you call the era, this is about as vertical as the vertical style gets.  What structure there is tends to be concentrated on the bodice.  Still, it’s by no means a plain style.  These dresses show some beautiful work on the bodice and neckline, and the scarves or tippets add drama.

Walking & Morning Dress

Dress description

You will note that plump cheeks are in fashion.


Images courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art, via Internet Archive.
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Friday video: Georgian history & politics according to Thomas Rowlandson

Rowlandson, Portsmouth Point

Loretta reports:

Since we Nerdy History Girls are so nerdy about the Georgian era, certain names are as familiar to us as current celebrities are to normal people.

One of our historical celebrities is Thomas Rowlandson, who often illustrates our posts.

This short clip gives a little summary of early 19th century England politics & scandal, with Rowlandson providing the show & tell and the wonderful Brian Blessed narrating.

Readers who receive our blog via email might see a rectangle, square, or nothing where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.

Image:  Thomas Rowlandson, Portsmouth Point, courtesy Wikipedia.
Clicking on the caption will take you to the source of the image, where you can enlarge it.

A Gothic Grand Piano for July 1826

Gothic grand piano

Gothic piano description

Loretta reports:

This is not at all what we’re accustomed to, in the way of grand pianos.  But as the text informs us, a piano was a relatively new instrument, so there wasn’t much in the way of preconceived notions about what it ought to look like.  The idea, as explained, is to make the instrument match the decor, and the Gothic* style was well loved.  Though many associate classic Greek simplicity with this time period, "more is more” tended to be the design ideal, most notably for the sovereign (formerly Prince Regent), King George IV.

*Previous posts on the Gothic style include Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill, looking glasses, dairy houses, and cottages.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source.

For Royal Relaxing: The Prince of Wales Banyan, c. 1785

Isabella reporting,

While we were away from the blog, I had the great good fortune to see the exhibition Artist/Rebel/Dandy: Men of Fashion at the RISD Museum in Providence, RI.

Men's wear is often sadly under-represented in fashion collections, making this exhibition of historical and contemporary male clothing that made a bold personal statement for the wearer even more exciting (at least for Nerdy History People, anyway.) There was one room after another of fantastic clothes, from the beautiful linen shirts favored by Beau Brummell to Fred Astaire's tuxedo to Andy Warhol's paint-splattered Ferragamo oxfords.

While the exhibition has recently closed, highlights are still on line here, and the splendid hardcover companion book is available here.

One of the special pieces for me was this 18th c. banyan once worn by George IV (1762-1830) while he was Prince of Wales. (The banyan was making a rare appearance state-side, on loan from the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery.) Banyans were a kind of dressing-gown or robe worn by Georgian gentlemen as informal attire (for more information and other examples, see our blogs here, here, and here.) The elaborately patterned cotton chintz would not only have been comfortable - a welcome break from the formal silks of court life - but as a costly textile imported from India, the cotton would also have made a luxurious statement fit for a royal prince.

This banyan was quilted for extra warmth, and the braided closures and high collar, left, add to its exotic appeal. We tend to think of George IV in his later portly days as the Prince Regent, but this banyan, made between 1780-1790, proves that he cut a much less substantial figure as a young man in his twenties – although apparently there are interior panels that prove that the banyan was let out over time to accommodate his growing girth.

I particularly liked the quote that accompanied the banyan. Attributed to George "Beau" Brummell, it perfectly sums up the life around the Prince of Wales and his circle in late 18th c. Brighton, with young gentlemen elegantly lounging in banyans like this one: "Come to Brighton, my dear fellow. Let us be off tomorrow; we'll eat currant-tart, and live in chintz and salt-water."

Banyan, maker unrecorded, c. 1780-90. From the collection of Brighton Museum & Art Gallery. Top photo: RISD Museum. Lower photo: Brighton & Hove Museum.