Winged Lions' Feet, Dolphins, & Horns-of-Plenty: Sofas for a New America, 1800-1830

Susan reporting,

Last month I visited the Ten Broeck Mansion, an elegant Federal-style house built in Albany, NY. Built in 1797-98 by General Abraham Ten Broeck and his wife, Elizabeth Van Rensselaer, the house sits high on a hill, overlooking the Hudson River. The mansion is currently the home of the Albany County Historical Association, and most of the rooms are shown decorated to reflect the tastes of the early 19thc owners. I will be writing more about the Ten Broeck Mansion in a future blog post, but today I wanted to feature some of the most interesting - at least to me! - pieces of furniture on display: the sofas. (As always, please click on the images to enlarge them.)

Today we think of a sofa (or couch, or sectional) as the most comfortable piece of furniture in most American homes, a large, soft, and often over-stuffed place for serious lounging. The term "couch-potato" is not to be taken lightly when thinking of modern American sofas.

In the 18thc, however, a sofa was still a rarity in most American homes. Instead most homes featured a variety of chairs that were moved around to suit a room's various purposes (dining, receiving visitors, playing cards), and then placed along the walls of the room when not in use. Lounging wasn't the primary goal. In fact, it probably wasn't even possible in most 18thc chairs.

By the early 19thc, however, American homes were grander and larger, and tastes were changing. The classically inspired French Directoire crossed the Atlantic and became American Directory or American Empire, as exemplified by the work of master American cabinet maker and furniture designer Duncan Phyfe (1768-1854.) The style was considered  to possess a particularly patriotic American flavor, incorporating classical design elements much as the American government was modeled on those of Rome and Greece. Acanthus leaves, rosettes, winged lions' paws, and dolphins are ancient motifs, while baskets of fruit, sheaves of wheat, and horns of plenty promised prosperity and abundance for the still-new country.

A sofa in the Directory style became the perfect centerpiece for American parlors, often as part of a matching suite of furnishings. Not only did the sofa display the owners' exquisite taste, but their pocketbook as well. Elaborately carved of imported woods like mahogany and luxuriously upholstered, often in silk, the large and lavish sofa was an expensive status piece.

Alas, tastes in decor are always changing, and what made an imposing statement two hundred years ago is simply too large and unwieldy for modern houses and apartments.  With their minimal cushions, these sofas also don't look up to the task of serious Netflix binge-watching, either.  But for pure craftsmanship and elegant design, I'll take one of these sofas over a sectional any day.

There are numerous sofas from this period on display in the Ten Broeck Mansion. I think I counted at least a half-dozen, each more imaginative than the last, and in beautiful condition. I'm featuring details of the carving from four of them here.

Many thanks to Karen Giordano, Albany County Historical Association, for her assistance with this post.

Top left: Sofa, c. 1800, carved mahogany. On loan from Gladys V. Clark.
Middle left & right: Sofas, c1810-1830, carved mahogany with upholstery. Both on loan from the Museum of the City of New York.
Bottom right: Sofa, c1810-1830, carved mahogany with upholstery. From bedroom furnished by the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Photographs ©2018 by Susan Holloway Scott.

The Chaise Longue

Madame Recamier by David 1800

Loretta reports:

A reader recently commented:

"This is off topic, but yesterday my family visited the Breakers in Newport. I noticed a lot of chaise lounges in the bedroom and asked the docent how you sat in them. He asked a friend, and they said that napping in bed was considered feeble, or improper so they invented the lounges, but they were only briefly popular."

Let me start by staying that Docents/Tour Guides are not all historians, and not everything they say should be taken as gospel. In the course of our travels to historic sites, Susan and I have heard some interesting “explanations” of this and that, which range from Nonsense to Strange But Mostly True to Impeccably Researched.

First, let’s let the Merriam Webster site get the chaise longue vs. chaise lounge terminology out of the way—but please note that, generally, the English went with longue, while Americans leaned on lounge.

Second, the chaise longue was not an invention of the Gilded Age, but was around long before the Breakers was built in 1893. Madame Recamier reclines upon one in the image, upper left, from 1800. The chaise longue at right below appeared in the first volume of Ackermann’s Repository (January 1809). Depending on what you call it—daybed, fainting couch, etc., this type of furniture goes back to the time of the Egyptians, But for now I'm focusing on the 19th century chaise longue.

Third, this piece of furniture had, so far as I can ascertain, nothing to do with napping in bed being feeble or improper. (The Met offers its theory about daybeds, here.) It was often found in the boudoir (though that’s by no means the only place), and was rather more than “briefly popular.” Characters in numerous 19th century novels are lying on chaise longues* or swooning or sitting or dying on them or adding them to a room’s furnishing or throwing a pillow on them or some such.

Chaise Longue January 1809 Ackermann's Repository

The Craftsman, Vol. 29, 1915, offers a history, with illustrations, and refers to a “revival.” However, examples of chaise longues appear during the Victorian era as well as the Regency. It's possible, certainly, that one generation or group found them old-fashioned, and another decided they were cool again.

Here’s an 1805 image from A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior Decoration in the Most Approved and Elegant Taste. You can see many Victorian examples here at Carter’s Price Guide to Antiques.
Moving on to the 20th century: Here’s a 1914 image from Elsie de Wolfe’s The House in Good Taste.  Here’s a May 1920 image from Illustrated World. And here's an interesting 3-piece version for 1921 from The House Beautiful.

*Chaises longues is also correct for the plural. Dictionaries differ on this. Take your pick.

Images: Jacques-Louis David  (1748–1825) Portrait of Madame Récamier (1800), Louvre Museum
Chaise longue from Ackermann’s Repository January 1809, courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art via Internet Archive.


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Elegant Bookcase for a Fashionable Regency Library

Library Bookcase March 1812

Loretta reports:

I set quite a few scenes in libraries, mainly because, by the time of my stories, they had become a family gathering place. Furthermore, in many great houses, these were large, comfortable rooms, often fitted out less formally than say, the drawing room. The one I used in A Duke in Shining Armor is a good example.

While bookcases, complete with writing desk, might appear in various rooms, this one seems to need quite a large room. And even if the library already has miles of bookshelves, those of us who love books can always use storage space for more.

I was particularly struck by the tambour circular cupboards, because (a) while horizontal tambour is fairly common, the circular vertical style is much less so, and (b) one of my own favorite pieces of furniture is a mid-20th century dressing table that has this feature.

Bookcase description

Images from Ackermann's Repository for March 1812, courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art, via Internet Archive.

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The Geffrye Museum of the Home

Ornamental glass lustres c. 1880

Caughley Tea Service c. 1780

Loretta reports:

Instead of the usual Friday video, I’m offering a tour of the Geffrye Museum of the Home, which my husband and I visited during our time in London. The draw for me was the series of period rooms.

As Susan and I have often lamented, it’s much easier to find paintings and prints of exteriors than interiors. The Geffrye offers a chance to view some interiors and, especially, to notice the way home life changed over time. These aren’t the homes of aristocrats, but, with the exception of the almshouses, of well-off families of the professional classes.

With the museum closed for development until 2020, I invite you to check out the panoramas and the virtual tour offered on the website—which I supplement with these photographs from our visit.

Photographs by Walter M. Henritze
Clicking on the image will enlarge it.

Friday Video: Knole House, Kent

Loretta reports:

Rather a long time ago, at the end of the England trip that led to my writing Lord of Scoundrels, my husband and a friend and I visited Knole. By this time, we’d explored a number of stately homes, but Knole was an entirely new experience. This wasn’t simply because the early Jacobean structure was older than many of the homes we’d visited, but because so much of the centuries-old stuff inside wasn't renovated or restored, but the original stuff, fading and tattered. While conservation work is ongoing, and a great deal has been done since we visited, it’s still possible to see some these furnishings, and they do give the place a different atmosphere from that of other great houses. Then, too, there’s the sheer size of the place. I'm pretty sure the impression it made led to my fascination with Jacobean mansions, and having my characters live or get married in them.

Video:  Knole - Five centuries of showing off

The video is one from  Knole's YouTube channel where, among other things, you can watch conservation in process.

Image: Knole House, from Francis Orpen Morris, A Series of Picturesque Views of Seats of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland: With Descriptive and Historical Letterpress, Volume 6 (1880)

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Eighteenth-Century Time, and Two Tall Clocks That Told It, c1796

Susan reporting,

Today, we're all accustomed to lives that are driven and measured by time. Watches, clocks, and cell phones are synchronized in precise unison, and each day we work and play, attend meetings, movies, games, and performances, catch trains and eat meals, rise and sleep, by a clock's measurements.

But it wasn't that way in late 18thc America. Precise measurement of time was an elite luxury. The majority of people didn't own watches or clocks. Even for those with sufficient wealth to possess a watched tucked into a fob pocket or clipped to a chatelaine at the waist, accuracy was variable, and being punctual was subjective. Instead people relied upon more general ways of determining time based on the sun and moon in the sky, or the cries of a watchman, or the still-rare public clock in the tower of a church or other public building. The average workday wasn't nine-to-five; it was from sunrise to sunset, and varied with the seasons.

The two case clocks shown here are the exception. Both are the work of Robert Joyce, a clockmaker who trained and worked in London and Dublin before establishing himself in New York City, where these two clocks were made in the 1790s. Although elegantly encased in gleaming mahogany with inlay work (the ovals of sixteen stars represented the then-number of states in the union). The clocks would have been the epitome of modern technology at the time, with 8-day weight-driven movements. They're also very tall, over ten feet in height. They would have been impossible to ignore, which was likely exactly what the man who commissioned them would have wished.

Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) was one of the most productive men of his age (or any other, for that matter.) He was a workaholic long before the word existed, and in the course of his short life, he wrote letters by the thousand, juggled complicated matters of government policy and diplomacy, handled precedent-setting-legal cases, and created the basis for the American financial system. It's not surprising that during the Revolution, he became Gen. George Washington's favorite aide-de-camp on his personal staff. Hamilton got things done.

As the new country's first Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton oversaw the largest single office in the federal government in the then-capital of Philadelphia, and he expected his clerks and other employees to share his ferocious work ethic. Even during the onslaught of the city's Yellow Fever epidemic in 1793 - a terrifying disease that claimed hundreds of people, rich and poor - many of Hamilton's clerks continued to report for work until the office was officially closed.

By tradition, Hamilton commissioned the clock on the top left for the Bank of New York, which he had established in 1784. Its near-twin on the lower left was made for the First Bank of the United States, lower right, (and more info here about plans to restore it) which Hamilton helped charter in 1791. Both clocks were made about 1797. The two banks were grand, imposing buildings, and the towering clocks would have been designed to fit the financial magnificence. Clocks represented efficiency, an admirable quality in a bank, and a clock of this size and obvious expense would also have suggested prosperity and permanence.

Still, I can't help but imagine the effect that such a clock's size and relentless ticking must have had on the clerks who toiled nearby - a painfully modern reinforcement that time is money, and money time. Each click of the hand must also have been an unending reminder of Hamilton's own determination to squeeze as much as he could from every minute - a daunting expectation in any workplace.

Above left: Tall Case Clock by Robert Joyce, c1796, New-York Historical Society.
Above right: Tall Clock by Robert Joyce, c1797, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Lower right: First Bank of the United States, completed 1797; now part of Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia.
Photographs ©2017 Susan Holloway Scott

Read more about Alexander and Eliza Hamilton in my newest historical novel, I, Eliza Hamilton, now available everywhere. 

Friday Video: The Countess of Provence's Fabulous Jewel Cabinet, 1787

Susan reporting,

In this era of mass-produced, particle board furniture that's bolted together and has the lifespan of a loaf of bread, it's almost impossible to imagine the level of craftsmanship, skill, and pride that went into creating something like the jewel-cabinet shown in this video. This exquisite piece was made in the 1780s by the cabinetmaker Jean-Henri Riesener for Marie-Josephine-Louise of Savoy, who married Louis XVI's younger brother, the Comte de Provence (and future Louis XVIII.)

Although the Comte and Comtesse were able to flee to the safety of the Austrian Netherlands in 1791 and therefore escape the guillotine, all their belongings were confiscated by the state. Originally the jewel-cabinet was put on public display like much of the rest of the royal furniture, but as the government's funds began to dwindle, the cabinet eventually joined the pieces that were put up for sale. (In an earlier post, I shared one of Marie-Antoinette's armchairs that ended up in the home of an American Founding Father.)

The cabinet was offered to Napoleon, who declined to purchase it, preferring to have new designs and decor to reflect his empire rather than such reminders of the ancien regine. In Britain, however, George IV, however, had no such qualms, and eventually bought the cabinet for 400 guineas in 1825. It has remained in the Royal Collection ever since: a true masterpiece.

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The Invalid Chair in A Duke in Shining Armor

Mechanical Chair

Loretta reports:

The basics of this post appeared a few years ago, as Merlin's Mechanical Chair. Clearly, the ingenious device stuck in my mind, because it ended up playing an important role in A Duke in Shining Armor.

The trick was figuring out how the thing worked. In the first place, early 19th century prose can be very hard to follow. It tends to be much less direct than our way of writing. In the second place, my brain is easily confused by physics and mechanics. Doubtless it took me a lot longer to learn how to drive this chair than it did the Duke of Ripley, in my book. I will leave it to you to read the instructions and make what sense of them you can.

Meanwhile, let us consider for a moment the commentary that follows the instructions. "Amusement"? Oh, yes, I figured that one out pretty quickly. But the suggestions for running the chair by means of a "very small and portable steam-engine" remind me of the way some people used to imagine us flying around on individual rocket-propelled devices in The Future. Having a 19th C steam engine powering my chair does not strike me as a safer prospect.

And then there's the idea of finding a way "to enable it to carry a small cannon, which should be, both for itself and its operators, completely unassailable by the enemy, as well as, by the singular rapidity of its evolutions, terribly and unusually destructive." Is your hair standing on end? Mine sure is. But let us remember that Great Britain was at war with Napoleon in 1811, and things weren't going so well. At home, people carried on with their lives, but that didn't mean they weren't aware of what was happening on the Continent, or didn't take seriously the possibility of invasion. As it turned out, Napoleon continued to be a danger until June 1815.

By the time of my story (1833), however, that's all in the distant past, and the chair is perfoming its dual functions of serving those with limited mobility as well as providing amusement.

Mechanical chair described

Mechanical chair described

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The Wallace Collection

Loretta reports from London:

Though I had already put the Wallace Collection on my list of must-sees, the enthusiasm of our guide on a Marylebone walking tour led us to seek it out sooner rather than later.

As we came through the entrance, I think my head snapped back, and I had an image of myself with my eyes popping out of my head like a cartoon character. I've been to quite a few stately homes and museums, but I must say that none quite matched the visual impact of this. Though no photos can fully capture the experience, these will, I hope, offer a sense of the house. I also urge you to explore the website.

Meanwhile, we have our fingers crossed that time and circumstances will allow us to go back before we have to leave London.

For the Longest of Voyages, a Gentleman's Sea Chest that Does It All, c1794

 

Susan reporting,

American travelers today are accustomed both to convenience and speed. A journey to the other side of the world can be accomplished in a day, with as much luxury as the budget allows.

But in the late 18thc, international travel was neither easy, fast, nor luxurious, especially for Americans who wished to engage in the lucrative trade with India. All such journeys were made under sail. Voyages that began in Boston or Salem would continue across the Atlantic, around the Cape of Good Hope, and then across the Indian Ocean. The length of a voyage depended on winds, storms, seasons, the captain and crew, and a great deal of luck.

For example, Benjamin Carpenter left Boston on December 24, 1789 (Christmas Eve!), and did not arrive in Madras until August 16, 1790, after nearly eight months at sea. Dudley Pickman Salem was more fortunate; his voyage from Salem, MA to Madras in 1799-1800 took only 111 days.*

There were plenty of perils, too, including shipwrecks, illness, accidents, and pirates. If those were avoided, passengers still faced a repetitive and limited menu, lack of exercise, homesickness, and boredom. Even for an affluent traveler, quarters were cramped, often little more than a closet-sized cabin. The best (sometimes only) company would be books, which, like everything else, would have been carefully chosen with space at such a premium.

All of which leads to the ingenious mahogany sea chest shown here, now in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Benjamin Joy (c1755/57-1828) was a merchant from Newburyport, MA. Experienced in trading with India (he was one of the rare Americans at the time who had also lived in India), Joy was appointed United State Consul to Calcutta and other Indian ports by President George Washington in November, 1792. According to the chest's placard:

"Joy arrived in Calcutta in April 1794, where the British East India Company refused to recognized him as Consul, but permitted him to reside there as a 'commercial agent.' This marked the beginning of America's official relationship with India.

"Portable chests like this were indispensable on long sea voyages. This chest provides a felt-covered desk, secure compartments to hold inks and other liquids, more compartments for brushes and a sewing kit, drawers, a mirror, washbasin, chamber pot, and even a bidet."

The chest is a marvel of efficiency masquerading as an elegant piece of gentleman's furniture. Curator Anne Bentley demonstrated its various quick-change functions, and even over two hundred years after its creation, every drawer and compartment still fits snugly and perfectly into place. Meant for a tiny shipboard cabin, the chest would have made the most of the limited space. It's the Swiss Army knife of furnishings.

The origins of the chest are now unknown, but it's believed to have been made not in Salem, but in India, in preparation for the voyage home. Perhaps Mr. Joy used all that time on the outbound voyage to decide exactly what was required (and what he was lacking), and from uncomfortable experience was able to have the cabinetmaker create the perfect sea chest. Necessity can often be not only the mother of invention, but splendid design as well.

There is a similar chest in the collection of the Adams National Historic Park that belonged to another diplomat and frequent traveler, John Quincy Adams; his is referred to as a "traveling chest." Beyond that, however, the MHS staff isn't aware of any other surviving examples. If you know of another (no matter its origin), please leave a comment, and I'll pass it along.

* This information comes from another of our wonderful friends of the blog, Dane Morrison, author of True Yankees: Americans, the South Seas, and the Discovery of National Identity, 1784-1844, Johns Hopkins Press. Follow his blog here.

Many thanks to Anne E. Bentley, Curator of Art and Artifacts, Massachusetts Historical Society, for her assistance with this post. 

Sea chest, maker unknown [India?], 1790s. Massachusetts Historical Society. 
Photographs ©2017 by Susan Holloway Scott.

Friday Video: A Silk-Covered Armchair that Belonged to Marie-Antoinette (and Gouverneur Morris, Too)

Susan reporting,

Today's video begins like any other local news feature piece (except, of course, that it's in French, with an English voice-over) but I hope you'll stick with it to reach the part about the nearly-forgotten art of silk weaving. The old wooden looms are beautiful in themselves, and what the weavers create is breathtaking. I love the idea that the modern mechanical looms - driven by automated machinery and computers - are incapable of duplicating the painstaking work of a single highly skilled human.

The video explains how the reproduction piece on the loom is destined to cover an armchair - fauteuil à la reine - made for French Queen Marie-Antoinette in 1779, and now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. According to the Museum's site, the chair was part of a set that was intended for the queen's "grand cabinet intérieur at the château de Versailles during the winter months....but the chair and the rest of the set were removed in 1783, when the cabinet intérieur was redecorated, and placed in the queen's billiard room on the floor above."

Like so much of the exquisite craftsmanship commissioned by the 18thc French court, the chair was the work of several different master trades and their workshops. The designer was Jacques Gondouin, the maker was François Foliot, the carving was done by the workshop of Madame Pierre-Edme Babel, the gilding by the workshop of Marie-Catherine Renon, and the original upholstery was by Claude-François Capin.

Since this video was filmed, the project has been completed, and the armchair reupholstered in the reproduction silk lampas with silk passementerie. It's now on display in the Gallery 527, an installed room from the Hôtel de Cabris, right, where I saw it. The colors of the silk are bright and rich, the way they must have been when the queen first chose them. (Click here for more photographs of the chair, including details of the upholstery.) I'm sure Her Majesty would approve.

I thought that would be the end of my post, but to my surprise, there's actually a Hamilton connection to this chair. (I know, I know, because of my new book I, Eliza Hamilton, it seems as if everything has a Hamilton connection for me, but this really isn't as far-fetched as it might seem.) As the museum notes continue:

"Sold during the French Revolution, the entire set of furniture was acquired by the American statesman Gouverneur Morris, who served as minister of the United States in France from 1792 to 1794. The pieces were subsequently sent to Morrisania, Morris's country estate in the Bronx."

Gouverneur Morris was a long-time close friend of Alexander Hamilton, with both men working together from the days of the American Revolution through the fledging American government of the 1780s-1790s. Both were New Yorkers, and often socialized together. When Hamilton died after his fatal duel with Aaron Burr, Morris delivered Hamilton's public eulogy, and was instrumental in organizing a collection to help support widowed Eliza Hamilton and the couple's eight children. Considering the closeness of the friendship, it's entirely possible that at some point or another, Eliza and Alexander Hamilton may each have sat in Marie-Antoinette's armchair at Morrisania. How small a place the 18thc world was!

Many thanks to Melinda Watt, Curator, European Sculpture & Decorative Arts and Supervising Curator, Antonio Ratti Textile Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, for her assistance with this post.

Photograph ©2016 Susan Holloway Scott.

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From the c1765 Schuyler Mansion: Fabulous Flock Wallpaper

Susan reporting,

This past weekend I visited the Schuyler Mansion in Albany, NY. It's a magnificent Georgian brick house built by landowner, merchant, and politician General Philip Schuyler (1733-1804) between 1761-1765, the one-time centerpiece to a sizable 125-acre estate overlooking the Hudson River.

But what makes the house important to me is that the heroine of my new book, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, considered this house both her childhood home and her adult retreat. Here Eliza met her future husband, Alexander Hamilton, married him in the family parlor, and gave birth to their first child. The estate - then known as The Pastures - was an important place to her, and I'll be writing several blogs about it over the next few months.

Philip Schuyler was determined that everything in his new house would be in the latest style, and while on a trip to London in 1761-62 on business, he went on something of a buying spree. He had both considerable wealth and considerable taste, especially for a young man; he was only 28 when the house was begun. It's easy to imagine fashionable shopkeepers racing to bring out their best wares for the consideration of the New Yorker with deep pockets, and I only hope that his wife Catherine, left behind in Albany with their growing family (she'd eventually bear fifteen children), had some say in the decoration of their new home.

Among Philip's stylish indulgences were flock wallpapers. Mimicking the elaborate patterns of woven silk damask, flock (the flock was pulverized, powdered wool, a by-product of the woolen industry, that was applied to the paper with a turpentine-based glue) wallpapers were the height of luxurious display in the 18thc, and the richly patterned and textured papers hung on the walls of royal palaces. The scale of the patterns tended to be large, and looked best in big rooms like the ones that Philip was having built in his new house.

Miraculously, the record of exactly what he purchased remain in an "Invoice of Sundries to America." He bought flock wallpaper, listed by color, as well as "caffy," a kind of flock that copied damask patterns, enough to paper nearly every room. (He also purchased a special scenic wallpaper that I'll discuss in another blog.) While the original 18thc papers have long vanished from the house's walls, replicas have been created and hung in their place - the expert work of the Peebles Island Resource Center of the Regional Alliance for Preservation. 

As you can see from these photographs, the effect is stunning, the mixture of colors and textures both bold and sophisticated. (It's also tempting, and visitors are cautioned not to touch the lushly fuzzy patterns.) Impressive as it all is today, 18thc guests to the house must have been left in amazement by so much colorful splendor - exactly as Philip would have wished.

The Schuyler Mansion is now a state historic site, and open to the public. See their Facebook page for more information about visiting and tour reservations.

Many thanks to historic interpreter Danielle Funiciello for her expert tour, and her assistance with this post.

All photographs ©2017 by Susan Holloway Scott.

Read more about Eliza Schuyler and Alexander Hamilton in my latest historical novel, I, Eliza Hamilton, now available everywhere.

The Amazing Angle Lamp

Loretta reports:

As well as going under the Mound House of Estero Island, I entered the house itself, which has been lovingly restored to one of its earlier incarnations. Indoors included an immense bathroom (from a later period), which holds some fascinating exhibits for both children and adults.

But what caught my Nerdy History Girl attention was the lamp in the restored living room. A guide told me it’s an Angle Lamp, and showed me an old advertisement for it. Turns out this was a well-known type of kerosene lamp, which was around for quite a long time, and whose advertisements appeared in numerous periodicals.

Many of us tend to assume that, as soon as a new lighting invention came along, the old ones went away. But of course not. Just as today, we don’t always have the latest model refrigerator, people in the past, for the most part, kept their stuff until it didn’t work anymore and couldn’t be fixed. I exclude, naturally, the people who always have to have the latest thing, because they were around too, needing the most up-to-date caves, I’ll bet.

Angle Lamp 1907 ad

With lighting, it’s not necessarily a matter of making things last, though this is part of the story. People continued to use older types of lighting because the newfangled inventions were either suspect, e.g., for safety reasons, or simply for practical reasons. Thus gas began lighting the streets of London long before it lit private houses. In between, it blew up some buildings. Electric utilities came into being in the early 1880s, but it was a while before they became ubiquitous. And it was another while before many people deemed electric light safe, healthy, and/or not hideous.

You can read more ads and some fascinating claims (e.g., white light causes blindness!) via these links
The Mayflower, Volume 20, Issues 10-12 1904
 
The Medical Brief 1899

Watson’s magazine Vol 6 (1906)

Floral Life Vol 5-6 (1907)
—and many more by simply Googling "Angle Lamp"

Advertisement Image
American Monthly Review of Reviews Vol 36 (1907)

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A Cabinet (of Curiosities?) for December 1828

1828 Cabinet

1828 Cabinet description

Loretta reports:

As we’ve seen, a great deal of Regency and Romantic era design does not operate on the principle of Less is More. This cabinet is a fine example of the Decorated-Within-An-Inch-of-Its-Life mode. It’s also the kind of piece I might find myself using in a scene: the little drawers and pigeonholes, the objects sitting on top, and who knows what below, behind the doors …

1828 Cabinet Description

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The Tragedy of the Ex Dress & the Settee, c1760-80

Isabella reporting,

Fashion never stands still. But as we've discussed here before, women in the past didn't always buy a new dress to reflect a new style, but instead refurbished, retrimmed, or remade existing clothes that they already owned to fit the latest trends. (See examples here, here, here, and here.)

However, that's not what happened to the once-lovely 18thc dress shown here in pieces.

Last week I visited Winterthur Museum for a fine Nerdy History Girls afternoon with Linda Eaton, John & Marjorie P. McGraw Director of Collections and Senior Curator of Textiles. Linda showed me some of the treasures of Winterthur's costume and textiles collection - my idea of a perfect afternoon. In one of the storage rooms, Linda pulled a long archival box from a shelf and asked me if I'd like to see some "ex dresses." This was a new term to me, and at once I envisioned dresses worn by someone's former girlfriend. But in curatorial language, the "ex" refers more to the former state of the textile; in other words, it once was a dress, and now it's a fragment.

When new in 1760-1780, the ex dress shown here was a fashionable robe a la francaise (like this one), with a floating, pleated back and full petticoat, or skirt. The costly silk was likely woven in either Lyon, France, or Spitalfields, London, England, and then made up into a dress for a wealthy woman. The now-unknown mantua-maker who cut and stitched this dress was a skilled seamstress: the meandering floral pattern is carefully matched on the front of the bodice, with the two fronts mirroring one another.

The dress survived intact until the mid-20thc, when it fell prey not to another dressmaker, but to an upholsterer. In a practice common at the time, the dress was cut apart to provide a period-correct fabric for the 18thc settee also in Winterthur's collection, lower right. In theory this was a good choice: the settee was made in New England in 1760-1775, around the same time as the dress, and the style of the robe a la francaise offered plenty of yardage. In the hierarchy of colonial antiques, furniture outranked clothing until the late 20thc (when the study and collecting of historic dress began to be taken more seriously), and so the dress was sacrificed to outfit the settee.

At least the pieces of the dress that couldn't be used were saved - the bodice plus the shaped

sleeve ruffles, upper right, - but while the fragments are useful for study, they're also heartbreaking. To me the final indignity is the the remnants of the linen lining from the back, above left, showing the inner lacing that would have adjusted the now-vanished pleats.

Many thanks again to Linda Eaton for her assistance with this post.

Left: Ex Dress, maker unknown, silk woven in France or England, dress made in North America, 1760-1780, Winterthur Museum.
Lower right: Settee, maker unknown, Massachusetts, 1760-1775, Winterthur Museum.
Photographs used with permission of Winterthur Museum.

London in October in 1826

Loretta reports:

I discovered Peter George Patmore’s Mirror of the Months through Hone’s Every-day Book, which quoted from the excerpt below. Rather more readable than many writers of the time, Patmore vividly describes the sights and sounds of England, town and country, during each month of the year. He offers some insights into society—with lower case as well as capital S—as well as painting some charming domestic scenes, like this one. Anybody who’s been in London in the autumn will relate, I’m sure.

“But has London no one positive merit in October, then? Yes; one it has, which half redeems all its delinquencies. In October, Fires have fairly gained possession of their places, and even greet us on coming down to breakfast in the morning. Of all the discomforts of that most comfortless period of the London year which is neither winter nor summer, the most unequivocal is that of its being too cold to be without a fire, and not cold enough to have one. At a season of this kind, to enter an English sitting-room, the very ideal of snugness and comfort in all other respects, but with a great gaping hiatus in one side of it, which makes it look like a pleasant face deprived of its best feature, is not to be thought of without feeling chilly. And as to filling up the deficiency by a set of polished fireirons, standing sentry beside a pile of dead coals imprisoned behind a row of glittering bars,—this, instead of mending the matter, makes it worse; inasmuch as it is better to look into an empty coffin, than to see the dead face of a friend in it. At the season in question, especially in the evening, one feels in a perpetual perplexity, whether to go out or stay at home; sit down or walk about; read, write, cast accounts, or call for the candle and go to bed. But let the fire be lighted, and all uncertainty is at an end, and we (or even one) may do any or all of these with equal satisfaction. In short, light but the fire, and you bring the Winter in at once; and what are twenty Summers, with all their sunshine (when they are gone), to one Winter, with its indoor sunshine of a sea-coal fire?”

Images from Ackermann's Repository.
Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  

A Beautiful Bed with (Perhaps) a Political Agenda, c.1805

Isabella reporting,

Loretta has shared many examples (such as these here and here) of furnishings from the pages of Ackermann's Repository, showing what was "on trend" for fashionable homes in early 19thc Great Britain.

I was reminded of those illustrations when I recently spotted the bed, left, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. With its swooping curves, gleaming mahogany, ebony, and rosewood, brass inlay, and elaborate (reproduction) hangings, the bed could have been straight from the pages of Ackermann's. There's one difference, however. It wasn't made in London, but in New York.

According to the bed's placard:

"Following the Revolution, Americans took inspiration from the ancient empires of Greece and Rome in the establishment of a democratic republic. In turn, domestic interiors and furnishings began to resemble architecture and artifacts from classical antiquity. This bed's sweeping frame echoes the form of a Roman lectus (daybed) and the bronze plaque at the base bears the profile of a Roman magistrate or military officer."

In other words, this bed wasn't just a stylish piece of furniture: it was making a patriotic statement. Eagles and stars appear throughout American design of the period, and combined with the ancient Roman design, this bed was a thorough expression of Federalist sensibilities.

Or perhaps not. Although it was made in New York, the maker was a Frenchman, Charles-Honoré Lannuier. One of the city's foremost furniture makers, Lannuier employed his Parisian cousin, Jean-Charles Cochois, around the time this bed was made. Cochois would have brought with him the latest in Parisian designs inspired by the newly-created French Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon, too, wanted to create a new country with all the trappings of ancient Rome, but of a Roman empire rather than a Roman republic. So are the aggressive eagles on this bed republican American eagles, or imperial French ones?

One more thought: to the early 19thc customer commissioning this bed, the political and bellicose overtones of its design would have been a selling point. Today's consumers, however, prefer their beds to be a bit less menacing. While this style of classically-inspired bed - without the eagles and inlay - is once again very popular, savvy modern manufacturers call them sleigh beds - conjuring up cozy images of fresh snow, warm blankets, and sleigh bells instead of stern Roman military officers plotting their next conquest.

Above: Bedstead, by Charles-Honoré Lannuier and Jean-Charles Cochois, c.1805-8. Metropolitan Museum of Art. 
Photographs ©2016 Susan Holloway Scott.

Dining Room Window Decor for August 1816

Dining Room Curtains August 1816

Loretta reports:

The commentary about curtains and other hangings being used “in so liberal a degree” had me wondering whether this had been a recent fad, rather than the old-fashioned look of a previous generation. We do know that the heavily-draped look suited many Victorians, but I was puzzled about its popularity during the Regency. It’s also possible, though, that Ackermann’s Repository is simply explaining what’s tasteful and what isn’t, and casually directing the (upper class) reader to George Bullock, an important purveyor of furnishings during this period.

In any case, the view is nice.

1816 Curtains description

1816 Curtains description cont'd

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.