In Jane Austen’s times craftsmen created boxes and containers of precious metals, leather, silks, and decorated them with jewels. Boxes, Cases, Etui, Necessaire and everything else that was used to carry essential items for travel, sewing, medicine, writing, and toiletries. Containers were engraved to make exquisite and expensive items as well as practical carrying cases. books2read.com/suziloveBoxesCases
19th Century Snuff Boxes. Not only were boxes made to serve a purpose, but decorative boxes of all types were prized, especially in the 18th-19th Centuries when everything decorative and extravagant was in vogue and taking a pinch of snuff was fashionable. Snuff is made from ground or pulverized tobacco leaves and is sniffed from a pinch of snuff placed on the back of the hand.Flavorings were added to the tobacco to give a fast hit of nicotine and a lasting scent. Snuff began in the Americas and was used in Europe by the 17th Century.
Snuff became popular from the mid 1600s to the mid 1800s and was more popular than smoking. Inhaling snuff, or snuffing, was first seen by a European missionary in 1493 in Christopher Columbus’s new world within Haiti’s indigenous Taino. Until then, tobacco had been unknown to Europeans, but its use spread quickly throughout Europe during the 1500s. By the second half of the 17th century, ornate boxes started being produced to keep the precious powder dry and an entire industry making accessories blossomed around the fashion of taking snuff. Noblemen, and some women, carried extravagantly decorated snuff boxes with them at all times and would offer a pinch of their own particular blend to friends and family. Therefore, these boxes were always on display and so it became a competition to see who could have the most bejeweled or expensive box possible. By the mid 1800s, snuff taking was no longer popular so these exquisite and expensive snuff boxes became decorative, rather than functional.
1807-1817 ca. Man’s Leather Breeches, American. These are the sort of pants that the men Jane Austen knew would have worn for riding or in the country. Drop front buttoned flap at the waist, a drawstring at the back waist to adjust waist size, and drawstrings and buttons at the calves to keep the breeches secure when worn with high boots. via Metropolitan Museum New York City, U.S.A. metmuseum.org
19th Century Cross Letter or Cross Writing or Cross Hatching. The writer reached the bottom of the page, turned the paper sideways and adds a second layer of text. During the 19th century, paper was expensive and postal delivery was charged per page, or by the size of the paper. Cross-writing was a way to save paper and postage in Jane Austen and Bridgerton times, and many of Jane Austen’s letters were written this way. Once it becomes familiar, the mind adapts easily and cross-writing letters are surprisingly legible. Charles Darwin also favored this technique.
And so in proportion; the postage increasing progressively one penny for a single letter for every like excess ok distance of 100 miles. 1802 Picture of London Printed for R. Phillips via Google Books (PD-180)
1819 White Percale Dress, French. Deep hem of bubbly muslin, matching Percale Spencer or jacket, pink parasol and flowered straw hat. Spencer has short puffed sleeves over long straight sleeves and military style trimmings. Fashion Plate via Journal des Dames et des Modes, or Costume Parisien. Even though this a French fashion plate, this is typical of the outdoor outfit worn by Jane Austen and her contemporaries when going outside. An Empire style, or high-waisted white cotton dress worn under a Spencer, or jacket, for warmth and with a parasol to protect fair complexions from the sun.
Description Spencer: Short jackets worn for warmth over the high-waisted Empire style gowns that were popular after the French Revolution, where there was a shift away from opulence and decadence to simpler fashion. This jacket with very short bodice and long sleeves was known as a Spencer and was named after the male coat made famous by the Earl Spencer and said to have originated in accident to Lord Spencer in hunting when coat tails torn off and a cropped jacket was invented. The dresses in the early 1800s therefore became looser, lighter, and flowing and women became cold due to their very low cut and short bodices. Short fitted jackets that went easily over the dresses and provided extra modesty and some warmth. As Europe and many other parts of the world were deep in wars in the late 1700s and early 1800s, men in uniform were found everywhere. In support of these military men, fashions leaned towards military style shoulder paddings, shoulder embellishments, loops, buttons, and braids.
Definition Percale or Perkale: From the Persian word pargalah. Fine cotton fabric, or cambric muslin of good quality, originally from India, generally bleached, printed and finished without gloss. Contains more dressing than ordinary muslin, but without the glossy finish of cambric and is printed in fancy patterns on white and colored grounds. In May 1816, Percale was commented on in Rudolph Ackermann’ Repository Of Arts, “Perkale, as they call cambric muslin, is now almost the only thing worn in the morning costume: you must not, however, fancy that this proceeds from a wish to encourage English manufacture, but partly from a love for novelty, and partly because it is less expensive than cambric, and equally fashionable.”
Young Lady’s Day is Book 4 in the Regency Life Series.
This book depicts the often-frivolous life and fashions of a young lady in the early 1800’s, but also gives a glimpse into the more serious occupations a young lady may undertake. Through historic images, historical information, and funny anecdotes, it shows how a young lady fills her day, where she is permitted to go, and who she is allowed spend time with. These light-hearted looks at the longer Regency years are an easy to read overview of what people did and wore, and where they worked and played. There is plenty of information to interest history buffs, and lots of pictures to help readers and writers of historical fiction visualize the people and places from the last years of the 18th Century until Queen Victoria took the throne.
https://books2read.com/suziloveYLD
1810-1820 ca. Double Breasted Red Hunting Coat, English.
1810-1820 ca. Red Hunting Coat, English. Hunting was both a popular sport and an essential part of social success. Double-breasted tailcoat of woolen superfine, lined with sateen and cotton, M-notch lapels, nine gold buttons with heraldic crest, cuffs with three smaller matching buttons. via Collection from Castle Howard, Yorkshire, U.K. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK. Hunting coats, or colors, often red coats called pinks, were worn by hunt masters and hunters. In Bridgerton and Jane Austen times, or the early 1800s, gentlemen wore red coats like this while riding to the hounds.
Historically, hunt members wore ‘colors’ to distinguish between types of hunters and their level of experience. Traditional red coats were worn by huntsmen, masters, former masters, whippers-in, regardless of sex, while other hunt staff members and male members invited by masters wore colors and hunt buttons as a mark of appreciation for their involvement in the organization and running of the hunt. After the Hunting Act in England and Wales, only Masters and Hunt Servants wore red coats or hunt livery. Gentleman subscribers usually wore black coats, with or without hunt buttons and in some countries, women wore colored collars on their black or navy coats to help them stand out from the rest of the field. Some hunts, including most harrier and beagle packs, wear green rather than red jackets, and some hunts wear other colors such as mustard.
1810-1820 ca. Jane Austen Or Bridgerton Times Double Breasted Red Hunting Coat, English. #RegencyFashion #HistoricalFashion #JaneAusten #Bridgerton https://books2read.com/SuziLoveFashionMen1800-1819 Share on X
Are you a Bridgerton fan? Love Jane Austen? Love history? Take a look at a Young Gentleman’s Day in early 1800s. Young Gentleman’s Day Regency Life Series Books 2 by Suzi Love. Easy to read books on what a young gentleman did, wore, and lived during the early 1800s, or the Regency Era when King George 3rd was mad and his son, Prince George, was the Regent in Britain. #Regency #JaneAusten #amwriting books2read.com/suziloveYGD
19th Century Mid-Late Five Desk Seals. L-R Carnelian seal with silver mounts set with colored stones; malachite urn seal: gilt-bronze seal with winged cherub heads: Silver-gilt seal eagle, Silver-gilt seal as eagle’s leg below a blue glass ball. via Sotheby’s Auctions. sothebys.com
In the Bridgerton family, or Jane Austen’s household, and during the Regency Era, sealing wax was not only impressed onto the back of a letter with a seal to protect against tampering, but also to identify the sender of the letter. People, especially aristocrats, kept personal and family seals to be used for many different purposes e.g. A letter to a government official would be sealed with an aristocrat’s crest or title. Personal seals for identification have been since early civilizations. The rubber stamps and embossers we use today serve the same purpose, identifying the sender.
Definition: Wax Seals: Pressed onto a letter or envelope to show that a document is unopened or to verify the sender’s identity. A signet ring or was seal is pressed into a dollop of hot wax to seal a letter or envelope closed.
