Travel and Luggage By Suzi Love History Notes Book 10. How did people travel in Jane Austen’s times. In past centuries? What did they take with them to make their long journeys easier? Travel by road, ship, canal, or railway all took a long time and had dangers so people learned to prepare. And then, in the nineteenth century, road improvements, inventions, and scientific developments made travel more pleasurable. books2read.com/SuziLoveTravel
1715 ca. Rectangular Envelope Style Bag, French. Polychrome opaque and translucent glass beads strung with linen thread, held together by interlocking looping stitches (sablé). Design on white ground: woman playing table organ, woman seated, boy and girl flanking, urn with flowers right, two insects and curtain above (obv.); sun and phoenix of Louis XIV, ribbon above inscribed IE VIS SANS MOURIR, inscribed at bottom and right SI IE MEURS CE NEST QUE POVR REVIVRE (rev.); vegetative scene (flap). Gilt-galloon binding. Salmon figured silk lining and side panels. Cardboard foundation. via Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California, USA. collections.lacma.org
1800 Guitar, Probably Naples, Italy. The sort of guitar people in Jane austen’s era would have played in their homes. Spruce, ebony, ivory, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, and brass. This highly decorated guitar is an early example of a six-string, single-course guitar. The elaborate decoration features classical figures, musical instruments, and floral motifs made from ebony and fit into an ivory ground covering the back, sides, neck, and headstock of the guitar.
A second guitar at the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments features the same decoration, only in reverse, indicating that the decoration was made at the same time by cutting through thin layers of stacked ebony and ivory. A portrait in the center of the upper back is believed to be of Giovanni Paisiello based on his 1791 portrait. Paisiello was a composer of opera and many of his works were transcribed for use on other instruments and his pieces were a favorite of guitarists.
The fingerboard is covered with tortoiseshell over read paint with an ivory satyr inlaid where the neck meets the body. A carved wooden rosette may be a replacement and is surrounded by an ivory hexagon with ebony inlaid instruments and flowers matching the back. The decorative style is evocative of so-called Baroque guitars of the seventeenth century. The six-string, single-course guitar became popular in Naples at the end of the eighteenth century and then spread throughout the rest of Europe replacing the earlier five and six double-course guitars. via Metropolitan Museum New York City, U.S.A. books2read.com/suziloveMusicGeneral
19th Century Mother Of Pearl Carnet De Bal Or Dance Card, French. via Ruby Lane Antiques.
1820-1840 ca. Reticule, Or Purse, France. Bag of plain weave white moiré silk embroidered in colored silks using satin, stem, knot and couching stitches. Shape is five-sided, flat, with a scalloped top. Borders of flower wreaths. Embroidered on one side with a greyhound and with a long-tailed bird on the other. Worked as two separate panels, joined. Lined in pale blue taffeta. Blue and white silk cord. via Cooper Hewitt, New York City, USA. collection.cooperhewitt.org
Definition Reticule: Bag or purse, often with a drawstring to pull closed and usually made of cloth or covered cardboard and often decorated with beading or embroidery. A reticule, or purse, or handbag, was usually carried by a woman during the Regency period to carry all their daily necessities. Earlier, women used pockets that tied at the waistline and were hidden in the folds of their skirts. Empire style, or early 1800s, high-waisted dresses made it impossible to either sewn in a pocket or to tie on a pocket. So women began carrying small, decorated bags called Reticules, or ridicules, which generally pulled close at the top with a drawstring. http://books2read.com/suziloveReticules
1863 Traveler’s Chest, French. Sewing Tools, Ruby Perfume, Aide de Memoire or Notebook, etc. Inside lid with theatre curtains. via Ruby Lane Antiques. rubylane.com
19th Century First Quarter Red Mesh Reticule, British. Small mesh bags known as reticules were the must-have “it bags” of 1800-1825. Too small for carrying much more than a few coins, reticules were often shown in satirical prints as a fashionable foible of women’s attire. Knit into an elegant lantern-like shape, this example survives with its original ribbon trim making it a particularly lovely and rare example of a short-lived fashion trend. via Metropolitan Museum, N.Y.C., U.S.A. metmuseum.org
Definition Reticule: Bag or purse, often with a drawstring to pull closed and usually made of cloth or covered cardboard and often decorated with beading or embroidery. A reticule, or purse, or handbag, was usually carried by a woman during the Regency period to carry all their daily necessities. Earlier, women used pockets that tied at the waistline and were hidden in the folds of their skirts. Empire style, or early 1800s, high-waisted dresses made it impossible to either sewn in a pocket or to tie on a pocket. So women began carrying small, decorated bags called Reticules, or ridicules, which generally pulled close at the top with a drawstring.
Fan of Regency London in the times of Jane Austen and Bridgertons? Regency Overview Book 1 Regency Life Series #JaneAusten #RegencyEra #Bridgerton #Nonfiction #amwriting https://books2read.com/ROver
Continue reading →Travel and Luggage By Suzi Love History Notes Book 10. How did people travel in Bridgerton’s and Jane Austen’s times? What did they take with them to make their long journeys easier? Travel by road, ship, canal, or railway all took a long time and had dangers so people learned to prepare. And then, in the nineteenth century, road improvements, inventions, and scientific developments made travel more pleasurable. books2read.com/SuziLoveTravel
1800 – 1820 ca. Bag, Or Reticule, Dutch. Cotton, glass and with drawstring. via Metropolitan Museum New York City, U.S.A. metmuseum.org http://books2read.com/suziloveReticules Because reticules were so popular, Jane Austen and her family and friends and the Bridgerton family would have made reticules for each other for gifts and carried these small purses with them whenever they went out.
From Historic Dress In America: ‘Reticules were so universally carried during the first part of the nineteenth century that they were called Indispensables, and a few years later ridicules. Miss Southgate describes one in a letter in 1802, ‘Martha sent me a most elegant Indispensable, white lute-string spangled with silver…’
Definition Reticule Or Bag or Purse: Often with a drawstring to pull closed and usually made of cloth or covered cardboard and often decorated with beading or embroidery. A reticule, or purse, or handbag, was usually carried by a woman during the Regency period to carry all their daily necessities. Earlier, women used pockets that tied at the waistline and were hidden in the folds of their skirts. Empire style, or early 1800s, high-waisted dresses made it impossible to either sewn in a pocket or to tie on a pocket. So women began carrying small, decorated bags called Reticules, or ridicules, which generally pulled close at the top with a drawstring.
• Beadwork: Attaching beads to one another by stringing with a needle and thread or thin wire, or sewing them to cloth. Includes loom weaving, stringing, bead embroidery, bead crochet, and bead knitting.
• Embroidery: Decorating fabrics with a needle and thread, or cloth, such as a needlepoint picture of a house or hand sewn initials.
