Guess the Purpose of These 19thc. Bags

Isabella reporting,

When I first spotted this assortment of simple little bags made from 19th c. printed cotton in A Colorful Folk: Pennsylvania Germans and the Art of Everyday Life, an exhibition currently on display at Winterthur Museum, I'd no idea what treasures they might once have held. Jewelry? Hairpins? Handkerchiefs? Or were they reticules, the small drawstring handbags popular at the time?

I should have guessed their purpose would be more prosaic, given the exhibition's theme. The Germans who settled in Pennsylvania in the 18th-19th c. had an exuberant design sense, and often decorated the most everyday items - from kitchen towels to bread boxes and even the bag that held rags in the outhouse - with fanciful colors and motifs. Scraps of fabric from clothing was transformed into patchwork quilts, or stitched into humble little bags like these.

A closer look at the bags tells their purpose. Two of them, right, have neatly stitched tags with inked labels: Radish says one in careful penmanship, while the other is marked Pink dbl. Hollyhock. They're bags for collecting seeds from the garden and storing them over the winter for planting in the spring, an annual ritual (and an important one) for gardeners.

I like to imagine the housewife who prized her hollyhocks, and perhaps shared the blossoms and seeds only with dearest friends or family members. Perhaps she'd brought the original seeds with her when she'd emigrated to America, or they'd been specially purchased from a seed merchant during a rare trip to Philadelphia. She didn't just write "hollyhocks" on the label. They were "Pink Double Hollyhocks", if you please, and well worth their own special bag, as well as her pride.

Above: Seed bags, cotton and linen, Southeastern Pennsylvania, 1820-80. Winterthur Museum.

Return Engagement: Pierre-Jospeh Redouté and his flowers

Loretta reports:

[Things here in New England are viciously cold, making this a good time, I think, to revisit a warm posts  This one originally appeared in January 2010.]

Spring comes late to New England, and after days of snow, I’m ready for flowers.  The ones illustrated here are by Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759-1840).  He was a court painter to Marie Antoinette as well as the Empress Josephine.  After the latter fell out of favor, he got friendly with the Bourbons.  It’s no small feat to survive those sorts of political upheavals.  One must be extremely charming or extremely talented.  It’s clear he was talented, and I’m guessing he was charming, too.  He’s one in a long line of amazing artists from the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Jane Austen’s World  offers a wonderful appreciation of Redouté.  If you scroll down the post, you’ll see his family in an entry from the 1889 Dictionary of Painters and Engravers.  At some online sites you’ll find Pierre confused with his brother Henri-Joseph, one of the naturalists on Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt.  The tale of the scientists and artists who created the Description de l’Egypte is a different, far more harrowing story—but with beautiful pictures—which I’ll get to one of these days. 

For now, though, let’s just enjoy the flowers.

What the French Lady Wore, 1780

Isabella reporting,

Whenever I visit Colonial Williamsburg, my first stop is always the Margaret Hunter millinery shop to see what beautiful new gowns and other goodies that the mantua-makers (dressmakers) have been making. The gown, top left, is one of their most recent creations, and worn by Abby Cox, one of the apprentice mantua-makers who helped make it.

This gown is a Robe à la Polonaise, a style popular in France and England c. 1780, and was inspired by the French fashion plate, right. This would have been a costly, high-fashion gown. (For comparison, see here for Abby dressed in the much more common clothing of an 18th c. maidservant.) The colors in this gown are reversed from the ones fashion plate because there was more orchid-colored silk taffeta on hand in their shop than yellow - something that an 18th c. mantua-maker would have done as well.

This gown was also an exercise in speed. A successful 18th c. mantua-maker had to be able to produce gowns swiftly, not only to answer the demands of customers who wanted a new gown immediately, but also to keep the shop profitable. In an era when the largest cost of a garment lay in the fabric, not the labor, the faster a gown could be created, the more profitable it was.

The CW mantua-makers have been working on improving their speed as well, striving to match their Georgian counterparts. This polonaise was begun on a Friday morning at 9:30 am, and was completed shortly before 3 pm on Saturday, including cutting, fitting, and stitching.

Everything was done in the 18th c. manner, and entirely hand-stitched. Seven women worked on the gown: the mantua-maker, two apprentices, and four seamstresses, working only during the shop's business hours (which in the 18th c., would have been the hours of daylight.)

Shortly after I took these pictures, I walked through one of Colonial Williamsburg's many gardens, and spotted the phlox, lower left, that were almost the same color. Fashionable silk, fashionable flowers.

Above left and lower left: Photographs copyright 2013 Susan Holloway Scott.
Lower right: "Jeune Dame en robe à la Polonaise...", designed by Pierre-Thomas LeClerc, French, 1780. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.