Breakfast Links: Week of November 7, 2011

Served up fresh for you, our weekly offering of Breakfast Links: our favorite links to other blogs, web sites, pictures, and articles, all collected for you from around the Twitterverse.

• Sotheby's London to offer an unpublished autograph manuscript by Charlotte Brontë: http://bit.ly/scCQ6G

• Landscapes still scarred by WWI battles.http://bit.ly/tSfrkp

• “The sting of a hornet”; Edwardian hat-pin self defencehttp://j.mp/sDLlPx

• The London Gazette was first published in 1665 & survives to this day: http://bit.ly/v7hHy7

• Mae West on skinny women, c.1934http://bit.ly/tOiDFj

• Did you know there was a NY Crystal Palace c 1853 in answer to the one in Hyde Park? http://bit.ly/utjEUg

• The working life of Museum of London - Dressing Daughter For Dinner, c 1934 http://bit.ly/volW2A

• Martello tower, Pevensey Bay, Sussex, built c 1804-1812 to defend against French invasion: http://bit.ly/rOFdax

• Wellies, cardies, macks, tarmac, bowlers ... the real-life people behind some everyday objects http://bit.ly/uKQb2B

• An elegant embroidered pelisse, c 1820: http://bit.ly/uAWXLJ 

• The Lord Mayor's Show, 9th November 1779http://bit.ly/sdCJxQ• Rare photo of Brighton Pavilion used as a hospital in WW1:http://flic.kr/p/aCaz6j

• The case of the Regency card racks in the collections of the National Trust - as unraveled by comment-posters: http://bit.ly/vo0hHo

• Fabulous online exhibit about Napoleon's scientific expedition to Egypt: http://bit.ly/uHSR7x

• Heraldic colors: See how Cinderella crept into this post (with a prompt from a reader) http://bit.ly/t6kKM7

• "To make a rich Seed Cake called the Nun's Cake" - 18th c recipe plus video from the cooks at Colonial Williamsburg: http://bit.ly/vdE4tm

• Rioting women in the Highlands during the C19th- http://tinyurl.com/d2bh4qn

• The Lincoln Mantua gown, 1730s, its conservation and Spitalfields silk - http://bit.ly/t4gqlB

• Excellent short video: Exploring Hogarth's restored house with Lars Tharp http://bbc.in/v2v9Ub

• The "greatest curiosity of the day" in 1817: Toby the Sapient Pig: bit.ly/udrvP8

Above: At Breakfast by Laurits Andersen Ring, 1898

Voices from WWI

Loretta reports:

At 11AM on 11/11/11, on the day originally called Armistice Day, many parts of the world will observe two minutes of silence in honor of the men and women of the armed services, past and present.

This short video brings us excerpts from letters written by men who fought in that Great War to end all wars, the war that gave us Armistice Day.

Needlework for a Fashionable Lady: Whitework Reticules, c. 1812

Susan reporting:

As promised, I'm sharing two more examples of the gorgeous needlework currently on display in the exhibition With Cunning Needle at Winterthur Museum (remember this young sailor's uniform?) These two drawstring bags, or reticules in Regency-era parlance, are exquisite examples of a style of embroidery known as whitework. It's easy to understand why: white cotton thread was used to embroider on fine white linen or cotton muslin cloth. The purity of this work showed off perfect stitches and elegant designs, and was considered an ideal pastime for ladies. (Click on the pictures to enlarge for details.)

While whitework has a long history – historians trace its origins back to ancient Egypt – it was most popular in England and America in the late 18th c and early 19th c., coinciding with the fashion for white muslin and linen gowns. Whitework is something of a catch-all term, referring to the materials and the effect rather than to a specific technique, and a whitework piece could include traditional embroidery stitches as well as lace-making skills such as cutwork.  Whitework could enhance personal accessories, like these reticules, as well as for scarves, cuffs and collars, and handkerchiefs, or household linens like tablecloths and bed linens. It could also be used to embellish an otherwise plain gown, such as this one (click on the last photo to see a detail of the embroidered fabric.)

These two reticules were made by Mary Greenough and Sarah Greenough in 1812. While Mary and Sarah were American, they were obviously well aware of fashions coming from England, and these reticules would have been as at home in London or Bath as they doubtless were in Philadelphia and Boston.

But just as the simple white gowns of the Regency gave way to the richer fabrics and more elaborate styles of the Victorian era, so, too, did whitework slip from fashion. Ladies turned to the vibrant colors of the Berlin wools being imported from Germany, and preferred the more regimented stitching of canvas work, or needlepoint. Fine whitework was relegated to handkerchiefs and infants' and children's clothing, and by the middle of the 20th c., it was largely replaced even on those humble garments by commercial machine embroidery.

Yet whitework isn't an entirely lost art, as the millions who watched the Royal Wedding last spring can attest. Kate Middleton's wedding dress and veil were a virtuoso display of whitework at its very best, executed by the master needleworkers of the Royal School of Needlework.

Good news for those of you who can't visit Winterthur and this extraordinary exhibition! The museum has put the lavishly illustrated catalogue on-line as a PDF. Click here to download.

Above: Drawstring bags (reticules), worked by Mary Greenough and Sarah Greenough, United States, 1812, Winterthur Museum, Bequest of Henry Francis du Pont.

The privileges of being a peer

Loretta reports:

I think the following, taken with my recent blog on illegitimacy, offers some insight into the mindset of the upper classes.  So many rules didn’t apply to them—which helps explain the behavior we’ve blogged about here, here, here, and here, and elsewhere.

~~~

THE PRIVILEGES OF THE PEERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
The nobility of England enjoy many great privileges, the principal of which are as follows:
1. That they are free from all arrests for debts, as being the king's hereditary counsellors. Therefore a peer cannot be outlawed in any civil action, and no attachment lies against his person. This privilege extended also to their domestic servants, as well as to those of members of the lower house, till the year 1770 . . . For the same reason they are free from attending courts leet, or sheriffs turns; or, in cases of riot, from attending the posse comitatus.

2. In criminal causes they are only tried by their peers, who give their verdict, not upon oath, as other juries, but only upon their honour; and then a court is erected on purpose in the middle of Westminster Hall, at the king’s charge, which is pulled down when their trials are over.

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.

4. Upon any great trial in a court of justice, a peer may come into the court, and sit there uncovered.

No peer can be covered in the royal presence without permission for that purpose, except the lord baron of Kinsale, of his majesty's kingdom of Ireland. See De Courcy, Baron Kinsale, in the Peerage of Ireland... In case of the poll-tax, the peers bear the greater share of the burden, they being taxed every one according to his degree.

— Debrett's Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1820

Illustration:  House of Lords, from the Microcosm of London, 1808-1810

"A Map of the Open Country of a Woman's Heart", c. 1833

Susan reporting:

Recently I posted a pictorial map of Loveland that showed a charmingly optimistic and romantic view of love in America during World War II. 

This map from the 1830s, left, shows another heart-shaped fictitious land: A Map of the Open Country of Woman's Heart, Exhibiting its internal communications, and the facilities and dangers to Travellers therein. While it's a drollery, intended to be humorous, one wonders how many women were laughing.  Like so many 19th c. publications, this one claims to be the work of A Lady – but from the cynical tone of many of this map's landmarks, it's much more likely the work of A Man. (Click on the map to enlarge it and see the details.)

True, at the very center of this map lies the City and District of Love, with the modestly sized regions of Hope, Enthusiasm, Good Sense, and Prudence not far away. But the names of other towns and areas are much larger and less flattering, and include Coquetry, Love of Admiration, Selfishness,Vanity, and Jilting Corner. There are rivers called Drain the Purse, Willful Waste, and (horrors) Novel-Reading.

Clearly we're supposed to believe that the owner of this particular heart was shallow, greedy, and untrustworthy. Perhaps the most unsavory regions of the map are those marked Love of Display and Love of Dress, featuring the Pyramids of Fashion and the Satin Plains. Beneath the Promontory of Golden Fetters lies the Sea of Wealth, with Old Man's Darling Bay flowing into the suggestively shaped Jewelry Inlet. Oof!

Above: A Map of the Open Country of Woman's Heart, by A Lady, published by D.W. Kellog & Co., Hartford, CT, c. 1833-1842. From the collection of the American Antiquarian Society, gift of Charles H. Taylor