Baron Charles de Berenger's Gun

Loretta reports from London:

Don't know about you, but when I venture into a library's archives, I'm not expecting firearms. OK, so there weren't a lot in immediate sight, but I'll tell you there was more than one.

The place: The Kensington Central Library. My host: archivist/librarian Dave Walker, of The Library Time Machine blog, one of our favorite blogs. My firearm: a musket once the property of the Baron Charles de Berenger. His name was engraved in brass near the firing mechanism.

Thanks to Mr. Walker, I have discovered a most colorful character from the 1830s, the era in which I set my books.  You can read a bit about the baron here.  Among other activities--like a fraud or two-- he wrote an early book on self-defense, titled Helps and Hints: How to Protect Life and Property, which you can read here.

I'll be reporting more on my visit to the Kensington Central Library in coming days. I'm still reeling from the wealth of material in the archives--and I haven't even got to my own research yet!

Nude Male Races on Kersal Moor, 1777-1811

Susan reporting,

That title got your attention, didn't it?

Auction house listings for old manuscripts are seldom titillating, but when one of the friends of this blog, Mitch Fraas, shared the listing for the "catalogue," left, we knew we had to learn more, because YOU, our faithful readers, would want to know more, too.

The handwritten catalogue is more a record of races held each year on Kersal Moor, Greater Manchester, with dates and times of the winners. The auction house's description is remarkably straightforward:

"Autograph Manuscript, being a catalogue (headed "Calendar") of 35 nude male races held on Kersal Moor between 1777 and 1811....Dating back to at least the middle of the 17th century, the odd custom of naked fell running continued through the middle of the 19th century. According to Lancashire novelist Walter Greenwood, the custom was from the ancient Greek, and "so the lasses can way up form". This small notebook records a series of 35 races between 1777 and 1811, including names of the racers (and nicknames) as well as in most cases, times, distances and amounts wagered, as well as observations on the races. An interesting representation of a strange, but endearing, pastime."

Unfortunately, only one page of the manuscript is shown. From this, however, we can learn that the tersely named Stump (I don't want to guess how he acquired that nickname) ran three laps against Abraham Hershaw alias Tom Born, and won with a time of 14 minutes 29 seconds. He was speedy, that Stump.

But exactly how prevalent was nude racing in England?

In 1787, the Oxford Journal reported on a man named Powel from Birmingham who was attempting to run a mile race in under four minutes. In his trial, "He ran entirely naked, and it is universally believed that he will win the wager."

In the late 19thc., the journal Notes & Queries reminisced about "foot-races by nude men":

"During the summer of 1824, I remember seeing at Whitworth in Lancashire...two races of this description....the runners were six in number, stark naked, the distance being seven miles, or seven times around the moor. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of spectators, men and women, and it did not appear to shock them, as being anything out of the ordinary course of things."

In London, however, it did shock at least one indignant spectator, who wrote this 1808 letter in the Morning Post:

"In passing yesterday...through the Ride in Hyde Park, I was much surprised at meeting two men, nearly stark naked, running an arc on the foot promenade; they were attended by a great crowd....This indecent transaction was at a time when the Park was full of people, Ladies and others, and a few minutes before the Princess of Wales passed in her coach. The two racers...were privates in the Life Guards. I mention this with a view that their Commanding Officers may prevent such indecorous scenes for the future, which are liable to occur in the presence of all the Ladies of the Royal Family, and every female whom pleasure or business may induce to ride or walk through Hyde Park."

But not all females were so delicate; some clearly relished the view. Barbara Minshull, a wealthy 65-year-old widow from Manchester, attended the races on Kersal Moor on Whitsun in 1796. She was so taken with the sight of one of the racers, a strapping 6'4" soldier named Roger Aytoun that she proposed marriage on the spot. He accepted (though he was reportedly so drunk at the wedding that he needed to be supported.) Their marriage lasted until her death fourteen years later, while he went on to become a major general and a hero at the Great Siege of Gibraltar.

Eat your heart out, Magic Mike.

The manuscript will be sold at auction by Bonhams on June 7; here's the link if you'd like to make a bid.

Many thanks to Mitch Fraas, Curator at Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books & Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania, for sharing this first. 

Friday Video: Cycle Skating—A Roaring Twenties Craze

Loretta reports:

Don’t know about you, but I’d never heard of cycle skating, until somebody somewhere posted this British Pathé video. As often happens, I put on my history sleuthing hat to find out more. To my further surprise, I learned that cycle skating wasn’t exactly new in 1923. When it was new, according to this Scientific American article from March 1870, was half a century earlier.



Cycle-Skating - The New Sport of 1923, British Pathé TV.
(You can watch the same video with music here.)

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.

Horse-Drawn Carriages in Motion

Cabriolet

Loretta reports:

The heroine of Dukes Prefer Blondes drives her own vehicle—a cabriolet, as pictured at left— and there's quite a bit of traveling in the story, in various kinds of vehicles, including the hackney cabs and coaches I recently described. 
This short video offers s a chance to watch horses and carriages in action. Note that many of the vehicles are earlier than the time of my story, and some are quite modern, made specially for extreme carriage racing.

Image: John Ferneley,William Massey-Stanley Driving His Cabriolet in Hyde Park 1833, courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection


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.

Dandies on Ice, 1818

Isabella reporting,

Today the U.S. Figure Skating Association concluded their National Championships for another year, with extremely talented young athletes making all those jumps, spirals, and spins look effortlessly elegant.

That description does not apply to the dandies in this print.

Doubtless with visions of that same effortless elegance, these young fellow have dressed to the nines to venture out on the ice.  In the early 19th c., skating was a wonderful way to put one's self on display to admiring ladies, as well as to one another. But while these gentlemen have taken care that their neckcloths are perfectly pleated and their collars high over their years, they forgot that skating is anything but easy, and the results are not pretty. As one of them cries as he topples to the ice, "Oh Lord! How they are laughing at us!" (As always, click on the image to enlarge it.)

So while the title of this print may be Skaiting-Dandies, Shewing Off, I'm afraid the the only thing they're showing is their perfect dandified silliness.

Loretta and I both have a weakness for dandies. For more of their mishaps, see here, here, and here.

Above: Skaiting-Dandies, Shewing Off, by Charles Williams, 1818. Walpole Library, Yale University.

Catching Sight: The World of the British Sporting Print

Bachelor's Hall: Full Cry

Loretta reports:

My recent travels took me to Richmond, VA.  Naturally, a museum being in the vicinity, I went.

In fact, I visit the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts every chance I get because (1) it houses a fine collection, with style; (2) its walls always show me something relevant to my areas of research; and (3) its permanent collection includes a breathtaking collection of Art Nouveau furnishings and jewelry, which I’ll share with you in future posts. The restaurant is genius, too, by the way.

It was my good fortune to be in town when Catching Sight: The World of the British Sporting Print was on show.  Many of the works in this exhibition of 18th and 19th century sporting prints belong to the Museum’s collection, but are too fragile to keep on permanent view.  Some were on loan, mainly from the Yale Center for British Art, which also had a tremendous benefactor in Paul Mellon. Among several knockouts—familiar prints made new because they were full size, inches from my face—were Charles Cooper Henderson’s The Olden Time and James Pollard’s Approach to Christmas and Cottagers Hospitality to Travellers.

In and Out Clever

 And then there was Henry Thomas Alken, with whom I’ve become familiar while searching for driving and riding scenes.  Along with some witty views of hunting, his work in the show included a set of six prints titled The High Mettled Racer.  They tell in pictures and verse the story of a thoroughbred, from foal to death, and have proved impossible to find online in this particular iteration, although there are lots of “after Alken” versions, not half so vibrant, to my mind. From the first verse:

He now is all nature, his limbs finely formed,
His mouth never bitted, his whole form unadorned;
 By rich colour’d silks, platted mane, and such stuff,
For a thorough breed Foal is quite handsome enough.

It’s poignant, and since I cry over Little Nell no matter what Oscar Wilde said and no matter how many times I read The Old Curiosity Shop, you can be sure I cried over the horse, right there in the gallery.

If you can get to Richmond, this is a show worth seeing.  If you can’t, the catalog will at least show you tiny versions of this glorious collection of prints.

Illustrations are courtesy the Yale Center for British Art, since the VMFA seems not to have any of their collection online.  Above left:  Francis Calcraft Turner, Bachelor's Hall:  Full Cry (1835 to 1836) courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.  Below right:  Henry Thomas Alken, In and Out Clever (undated), Yale Center for British Art, Yale Art Gallery Collection, Gift of Francis P. Garvan, B.A. 1897 (for Whitney Sporting Art Collection in memory of Harry Payne Whitney, B.A. 1894  

Skating in Hyde Park, c 1780: Ideal vs. Reality

Isabella reporting,

With the athletic grace of Olympic figure skating currently on display at the Winter Games in Sochi, it seems fitting to look at two views of 18th c. skating in London. There were, of course, no elaborate indoor rinks or Zambonis. Skating was an outdoor activity that required a sufficient spell of cold weather to freeze the Serpentine River in Hyde Park. Anyone who has played "pond hockey" knows how unpredictable outdoor ice can be, especially when the Georgians were navigating it on the still-primitive skates that tied on over shoes.

Not that you'd know any of that from the portrait of the Scotsman William Grant (also known as The Skater), left, who strikes a confident, elegant pose worthy of any gold medal. Painted by the American Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) to mark the end of his apprenticeship to fellow-expatriate Benjamin West, this portrait was considered strikingly innovative, even daring.

Why? At the time, English gentleman preferred to have their portraits painted in grand, grave, noble poses, and not engaged in an active sport like skating. However, as Stuart later recalled, inspiration came from an actual event. When Grant arrived for his sitting, he noted that "on account of the excessive coldness of the weather...the day was better suited for skating than sitting for one's portrait." Stuart agreed, and the two men went off for an afternoon of skating on the Serpentine. Afterwards, Stuart suggested that he paint Grant on his skates on the frozen river, with Westminster Abbey in the background. Not only was Grant pleased with the portrait, but the crowds at the 1782 Royal Academy exhibition agreed, and with his reputation made, Stuart was soon able to set up a studio of his own.

In the distance behind Grant is a group of less skillful skaters on the ice. Likely these were more the rule and Grant the stylish exception, especially after seeing the drawing right.

As captured by Swiss artist Samuel Hieronymus Grimm (1734-1794), these skaters are colliding and crashing to the ice. Dogs are barking, wine bottles are flying (a little restorative against the cold?), and a pair of ladies appear to be strolling across the ice without skates at all. I particularly like the gentleman on the bench to the right, his hands in a muff, sternly watching while another man (a servant?) bends over with the gentleman's leg braced between his legs to pull off his skate.

Left: The Skater (Portrait of William Grant), by Gilbert Stuart, 1782, National Gallery of Art.
Right: Skating in Hyde Park, by Samuel Hieronymus Grimm, c. 1780, The British Museum.

Skating Away, c. 1760 & 1823

Isabella reporting,

One of the reasons that Loretta and I began this blog was to have a place to stash the odd stories and discoveries that we stumbled across while researching our books.  Sometimes it will be things that don't have a place in our stories, but are simply too interesting not to share. Sometimes, too, it will be things that if we DID put into a book, our editors might scratch their heads and say (politely) "Uh, maybe not."

The story below is one I'd love to incorporate into a story – I'm just not quite sure how. We've seen the incredible craftsmanship of inventor John Joseph Merlin (1735-1803) here on the blog before. An inventor and goldsmith with a gift for mechanical clockwork, he's credited with making this magnificent silver swan, and he exhibited many similar pieces at the popular Merlin's Mechanical Museum in London.  His other creations ranged from the prototype of modern wheelchairs to a device to permit the blind to play cards. His imagination was apparently boundless, and in his obituary it was noted that "he hardly ever let a moment slip by unemployed."

He also was a bit of a showman, and delighted in demonstrating his inventions. This, however, could go disastrously awry, as happened one evening when he sported a pair of his latest creation: roller skates. This almost sounds like a scene from a modern out-of-control Hollywood party, not Georgian London:

"Merlin's mind was adequate to the embracing the whole compass of mechanical science and execution; at least, in the articles connected with elegant and domestic amusement. One of his ingenious novelties was a pair of skaites contrived to run on small metallic wheels. Supplied with a pair of these and a violin he mixed in the motley group of one of the celebrated Mrs. Corneily's masquerades at Carlisle-house, Soho Square; when, not having provided the means of retarding his velocity, or commanding its direction, he impelled himself against a mirror of more than five hundred pounds value, dashed it to atoms, broke his instrument to pieces and wounded himself most severely."

This story comes from Concert Room and Orchestra Anecdotes of Music and Musicians, Ancient and Modern, by Thomas Busby, 1825 – a wonder for history nerds, and all volumes are available as free ebooks via Google.

The print, above, is about sixty years after Merlin's disaster, and clearly the skates have advanced. These jaunty fellows are wearing the "Volito, or Summer Skait" which look a great deal like modern in-line Rollerblades, right down to the rear brake. (As always, click on the image to enlarge it.) While the little poem at the bottom of the print mournfully explains how such skates could save children from falling through the ice and drowning, the splashier use for the skates seems to be helping a miscreant in striped trousers escape justice. Says the officer's assistant: "'Tis no use, master! the fellow has got wings on his heels."  Now picture that in a book....

Above: The volito, or, Summer and winter skait: for amusement in cold weather without ice, & is equally useful on stones, boards, &c. London, 1823. From the collection of the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. 
Many thanks to fellow-blogger Mike Rendell aka The Georgian Gentleman for first sharing this print with us.

Friday Video: Buster Keaton in the ring

Loretta reports:

I've incorporated early 19th C gentlemen's fondness for fisticuffs in several of my books.  For an idea of what boxing was really like back then, take a look at Georgian Boxing at Horrible Histories.


Fortunately for the squeamish, we don't have actual Regency era fisticuffs recorded on film—but here's Buster Keaton, my favorite silent film actor and comic genius, demonstrating his brilliance in the ring.

Cruikshank illustration from Pierce Egan's Life in London, 1821

"Strong nerves, strong legs, strong language": Women on Bicycles, 1890

Susan reporting:

In the 1890s, more and more women began to ride bicycles, both for exercise, convenience, and independence. As can be imagined, this horrified a good many people, who saw women on wheels as a dangerous threat to families, morals, health, and, of course, the fair, delicate flower of womanhood.

We expect to see women cyclists defended by Susan B. Anthony (who famously wrote that bicycling "has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.") But the English novelist John Galsworthy (1867-1933)? The Nobel Prize-winning author of The Forsyte Saga evidently had his own strong feelings about women on bicycles – at least if we are to believe this passage from his novel, On Forsyte 'Change, taking place in 1890:

"Such historians as record the tides of social manners and morals, have neglected the bicycle. Yet would it be difficult to deny that this 'invention of the devil'...has been responsible for more movement in manners and morals than anything since Charles the Second. At its bone-shaking inception innocent, because...[it was] only dangerous to the lives and limbs of the male sex, it began to be a dissolvent of the most powerful type when accessible to the fair in its present form. Under its influence, wholly or in part, have wilted chaperons, long and narrow skirts, tight corsets, hair that would come down, black stockings, thick ankles, large hats, prudery and fear of the dark; under its influence, wholly or in part, have bloomed week-ends, strong nerves, strong legs, strong language, knickers, knowledge of make and shape, knowledge of woods and pastures, equality of sex, good digestion and professional occupation – in four words, the emancipation of woman."

Of course, this passage exists to fly in the florid face of Swithin 'Four-in-hand' Forsyte, an aged bachelor who promptly writes his very modern niece out of his will after he sees her astride a bicycle. While young Euphemia may have looked as entirely proper as the young lady, above, it's more likely the scandalized Swithin saw her more like the contemporary out-of-control women (with monocles!) in the satirical cartoon, right.

Above: Julia Blaess Klager, Michigan Bicyclist (detail), 1890s, photograph from Studio of Susan T. Cook, Ann Arbor, MI. See here for more information.
Below: Velocipeding, drawing from the cover of The Ferret, A Weekly Literary, Satirical, & Theatrical Journal of the Age, March 1870, London.

Courtier's Muff = Quarterback's Handwarmer?

Susan reporting:

If the American media is to be believed, just about every television in the country will be tuned to a certain football (football-football, not soccer) championship game on Sunday night. Yet even amidst all the hoopla, we keep our NHG antennae tuned for nifty historical facts to share.

Take this example, drawn from the seventeenth century. Europe in the 1600s was exceptionally cold, a time when the Thames often froze over so completely that month-long Frost Fairs could be held on its surface. Even kings and noblemen shivered in their vast but drafty palaces.

Fashion answered with the gentleman's muff, slug low over the hips with the same debonair nonchalance as a sword. When made from costly imported furs like beaver or sable, a gentleman's muff was also one more showy example of conspicuous consumption in an era that loved display. For this group of late 17th c. courtiers, above left, their muffs are rivaled only by their wigs.

While muffs for men fell from style (though not for ladies: see here and here), they seem to have come back in a big way on the modern football field. It doesn't matter whether a guy is making a statement in the corridors of Whitehall or Versailles, or on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field: he still has to keep his hands warm for peak performance.

As the weather has grown colder, both of this Sunday's star quarterbacks – Tom Brady of the Boston Patriots, right, and Eli Manning of the New York Giants, left – have been wearing certain open-ended, insulated accessories tied around their hips. True, today they're made from high-tech thermal sports fabrics, not fur, and they're self-consciously called hand-warmers – but don't you agree that they sure look like muffs?

The Sluice-house at Highbury

Loretta reports:

Here's where London's Compleat Anglers went to fish.
~~~
THE SLUICE-HOUSE
Ye who with rod and line aspire to catch
Leviathans that swim within the stream
Of this fam'd River, now no longer New,
Yet still so call'd, come hither to the Sluice-house!
Here, largest gudgeons live, and fattest roach
Resort, and even barbel have been found.
Here too doth sometimes prey the rav'ning shark
Of streams like this, that is to say, a jack.
If fortune aid ye, ye perchance shall find
Upon an average within one day,
At least a fish, or two; if ye do not,
This will I promise ye, that ye shall have
Most glorious nibbles: come then, haste ye here.
And with ye bring large stock of baits and patience.
 . . .
The Sluice-house is a small wooden building, distant about half a mile beyond Highbury, just before the river angles off towards Newington. With London anglers it has always been a house of celebrity, because it is the nearest spot wherein they have hope of tolerable sport. Within it is now placed a machine for forcing water into the pipes that supply the inhabitants of Holloway and other parts adjacent. Just beyond is the Eel-pie house, which many who angle thereabouts mistake for the Sluice-house. To instruct the uninformed, and to gratify the eye of some who remember the spot they frequented in their youth, the preceding view, taken in May 1825, has been engraved.
—William Hone, The Every-day Book. —May 23.

Map courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Scan of Sluice-house, from Hone, courtesy me.

Pleasures & perils of skating

Loretta reports:

~~~
SKATING, a species of exercise upon the ice, performed by means of skates, or wooden soles shod with iron, resembling in shape the keel of a ship : the whole is fastened to the feet, by means of straps.

Skating is a healthy and elegant amusement, well calculated for the severity of winter; as it contributes to promote both insensible perspiration, and the circulation of the blood. Hence, a Society has even been formed in Edinburgh, under the name of the Skating-club ; the avowed object of which is the improvement of this recreation, so as to reduce it to the rules of art.—

Excellence, however, can be attained only by observing the motions of a skilful skater. Let it, therefore, suffice to observe, that this innocent pursuit, especially in the South of Britain, where the winters are generally mild, is highly dangerous ; and ought not to be encouraged, unless the ice be of considerable thickness: at the same time, great precaution is necessary to retire from such enticing diversion in proper time ; because the body, being thrown into sensible perspiration, is thus rendered more susceptible of cold ; and, unless due attention be paid to this circumstance, a fatal CATARRH*  will probably be the consequence.
—The Domestic Encyclopaedia, Volume 4, 1802

The Skater (Portrait of William Grant) by Gilbert Stuart, 1782, from the National Gallery, 
Washington, DC


*Inflammation of mucous membrane, especially of nose and throat.

The Fashionable Archer in 1831

Loretta reports:

If looking at history teaches us anything, it's to beware of making generalizations.  In my blog about Mrs. Bennet's nerves, author Thomas Trotter told us that girls were discouraged from getting exercise.  Yet that really isn't the complete picture.  Just as today there are extremes of fashionable dress, practiced by a minority, there were extremes of behavior.  We know that women rode and drove even in the Victorian era.  Bingley's sisters might laugh at Elizabeth for walking to Netherfield, but walking was deemed a healthful exercise, and many upper class women prided themselves on being able to walk long distances.

The following excerpt from an 1831 La Belle Assemblée indicates that many fashionable women knew their way around a bow and arrow.
~~~

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
ON
FASHIONS AND DRESS.

THAT truly English pastime, archery, the delight of our forefathers and foremothers (no cavilling, good reader—we insist upon our right to coin a word now and then), is once more become fashionable ; and we hasten to present our fair readers with two dresses equally elegant and appropriate for that healthful and delightful amusement.

FASHIONS FOR SEPTEMBER, 1831.
EXPLANATION OF THE PRINTS OF THE FASHIONS.
 
ARCHERY DRESSES.
FIRST ARCHERY DRESS. A DRESS composed of changeable gros de Naples, green shot with white. The corsage, made nearly, but not quite, up to the throat, fastens in front by a row of gold buttons, which are continued at regular distances from the waist to the bottom of the skirt. The corsage sits close to the shape. The upper part of the sleeve forms a double bouffant, but much smaller than is usually worn. This is a matter of necessity, as the fair archer would otherwise cut it in pieces in drawing her bow. The remainder of the sleeve sits close to the arm. The brace, placed upon the right arm, is of primrose kid to correspond with the gloves. The belt fastens with a gold buckle ; on the right side, is a green worsted tassel used to wipe the arrow ; a green watered ribbon sustains the petite poche, which holds the arrows on the left side. A lace collar, of the pelerine shape, falls over the upper part of the bust. White gros des Indes hat, with a round and rather large brim, edged with a green rouleau, and turned up by a gold button and loop. A plume of white ostrich feathers is attached by a knot of green ribbon to the front of the crown. The feathers droop in different directions over the brim. The half-boots are of green reps* silk, tipped with black.

So as not to make a loooong blog, I'm putting the description of the Second Archery Dress at Loretta Chase...In Other Words.

*Reps: A French silk fabric having organzine warp the ribs are either warp or cross ribs. (From Louis Harmuth's Dictionary of Textiles (1915)

First of September 1827

Loretta reports:

From The Every-day book; or, Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements, Vol. II, by William Hone.
~~~
September 1*

Until this day partridges are protected by act of parliament from those who are "privileged to kill."

Application for a License.
In the shooting season of 1821, a fashionably dressed young man applied to sir Robert Baker for a license to kill— not game, but thieves. This curious application was made in the most serious and business-like manner imaginable.

"Can I be permitted to speak a few words to you, sir?" said the applicant.  "Certainly, sir," replied sir Robert. " Then I wish to ask you, sir, whether, if I am attacked by thieves in the streets or roads, I should be justified in using fire-arms against them, and putting them to death ?"  Sir Robert Baker replied, that every man had a right to defend himself from robbers in the best manner he could; but at the same time he would not be justified in using fire-arms, except in cases of the utmost extremity. "Oh! I am very much obliged to you, sir; and I can be furnished at this office with a license to carry arms for that purpose?" The answer, of course, was given in the negative, though not without a good deal of surprise at such a question, and the inquirer bowed and withdrew.

* Feast of St. Giles, patron saint of beggars and blacksmiths, among many others.  The name is familiar to Regency readers as a famously crime-ridden section of London. 

Illustration by Robert Havell, Partridge Shooting at Windsor. 

Men & Women Swimming Together...in 1810

Susan reporting:

With summer winding down, I thought I'd post a print that's appropriate for the last days of August. It's going to be a case of "one picture is worth a thousand words", too, because I can find very little to share about its history.

Called "Les Nageurs" ("The Swimmers"), this image is No. 15 in a rare series of early 19th c. French prints called Caricatures Parisiennes: Le Supreme Bon Ton. The prints show the pastimes of fashionable young people in Napoleon's Paris. While they're called "caricatures", they have none of the bite of their English counterparts, and more of the hand-tinted elegance of fashion plates.

But consider what a racy scene this must have been at the time. Swimming had long been considered good manly exercise (recall Charles II, swimming in the Thames outside Whitehall in the 1660s) and ladies, too, had been known to dabble in the water, but I can't recall seeing any other picture from this early date showing the two parties in the water together. They're clearly swimming, too, not just splashing about. That one guy hopping into the water with his pointed toes is showing off his chiseled, beach-boy physique (as well as his woolly sideburns), hoping to be scouted for some long-distant episode of Jersey Shore.

Even more interesting is that they appear to be wearing stylish costumes designed specifically for the activity. No skinny-dipping for these folks! The men's drawers are based on breeches or drawers, with button-front falls (that flap-like fly) in the front, and the hems are trimmed with a natty contrasting border, much like the trunks worn by 1950s lifeguards.  The ladies are a little harder to figure out, but they, too, seem to be wearing specific swimming "dress," with caps over their hair and knee-length, sleeveless garments. There are buttons under the arm that have become unbuttoned (?) and I'm guessing the fabric is linen by the revealing way it's clinging to the lady's body. For that matter, the men's drawers aren't hiding many secrets, either, which makes this co-ed swim party all the more extraordinary.

Was this kind of easy, athletic freedom common in Paris at the time? Or was it only an invention (or wishful thinking) by the artist?

Above: Les Nageurs (The Swimmers), from the series Le Supreme Bon Ton, No. 15; artist unknown; published by Martinet, Paris, c. 1810-1815