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.
19th Century Shoe Snuffbox. via 1st Dibs Auctions 1stdibs.com19th Century Engraved Horn Snuffbox. Heart surrounded by flowers and leaves, sides with dove, symbol of purity and peace, brass hinge and setting. via 1st Dibs Auctions19th Century Carved Boxwood Snuffbox. Horse with saddle for a lid. via 1st Dibs Auctions
1804-1809 ca. Snuffbox in the Shape of A Lion, Moulinie, Bautte and Cie, Geneva, Switzerland.via Victoria and Albert Museum.1820 Snuffbox with scene of harvesting fruit. By Johann Wilhelm Keibel (master 1812; died 1862). via Metropolitan Museum New York City, U.S.A. metmuseum.org1810 ca. Jeweled Gold Snuff Box, Switzerland. Maker’s Mark Geneva. via Christie’s Auction Rooms. christies.com
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.
1820 ca. Brown Silk Pelisse, Or Coat, British. Worn over a light weight dress for warmth. Silk, lined with blue silk satin and cotton, hand-sewn. Front opening with concealed buttons and loops, wide stiffened collar, elaborate piping with thin rolls of fabric, skirt cut A-line shape and hem padded to accentuate shape, fairly high waistline with attached gored skirt and gathered panel at back. Long sleeves with short puffed over-sleeves. Green shawl, parasol, matching bonnet. via Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK. collections.vam.ac.uk.
Definition Redingote Or Pelisse Or Walking Dress Or Coat: French word developed from English words, riding coat. Long fitted outdoor coat worn over other garments for warmth. Often left open at the front to show off the dress underneath. Sometimes cut away in front. Originally made with several capes and trimmed with large buttons. French fashion plates call these coats Redingotes and they are designed for women, men and children. English fashion plates call them a Pelisse, a walking dress, Promenade dress, or Carriage dress.
1800-1870 ca. Stocking Purses, British. Beaded stocking purses crocheted in silk and steel beads, with steel rings with tassels and fringes. via Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK. collections.vam.ac.uk.
Definition Miser or Long or Stocking or Ring Purses: Long, narrow, tubular shape, often wider at ends and narrow in middle, which had a short slit opening. Popular in England and France from the mid-18th century through the early 20th century.
From the Curator Victoria and Albert Museum, London: Stocking purses are also known as misers’ or wallet purses. The majority were netted, but some were knitted or crocheted, like this one. Once worked, the elongated tube was put on an expandable purse stretcher to shape it. It was then sewn up, leaving a central opening, and squeezed through a pair of rings known as sliders, which were used to secure and separate the different coins stored at either end. It could be carried in the hand, bag or pocket, or tucked over a belt. Many stocking purses were made as presents, and were thought a suitable object to give to a gentleman. Crochet is a type of needlework with an open, lacy appearance, which is formed with a hook and single length of thread making a series of loops, chains and knots. The technique developed out of ‘tambouring’, a type of embroidery, after the tambour hook began to be used to create series of loops, free from a ground fabric. This could then be used as a separate trimming, like lace, or made to form items like this purse. Crochet was thus added to the varieties of fancy needlework available to ladies, and instructions for making it can be found in manuals from the 1820s onwards.
1800-1870 ca. Beaded Stocking Purses, British #RegencyFashion #RomanticEra #HistoricFashion books2read.com/suziloveReticules
1628 Silk and Glass Beads Purse, English. Brown glass beads on netted silk background, lined with leather and silk, silk ribbon. via Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK. collections.vam.ac.uk.
At the end of the winter term, schoolmasters would set their pupils to work on Christmas Pieces, samplers of writing on superior paper with engraved borders, to show parents how they had progressed during the year. By about 1820, the engraved borders were enhanced with color and the children’s pieces became more decorative.
However, the custom of sending cards at Christmas was started in the United Kingdom in 1843 by Sir Henry Cole. Postage had been standardized three years earlier and Cole was a civil servant who had played a key role in initiating Uniform Penny Post. He wanted ordinary people to become more interested in the new ‘Public Post Office’. With his artist friend John Horsley, they designed the first card which was issued from a periodical, Felix Summerley’s Home Treasury, and were sold for 1 shilling each.
The card was lithographed, hand-colored, had three panels and was in a rustic frame of carved wood and ivy. The outer two panels showed people caring for the hungry and the naked. The centre panel showed a family of three generations having Christmas dinner, although the temperate classes strongly objected to the idea of a child being given a glass of wine with dinner.
New railways carried more post, and a lot faster, than a horse and carriage so the Post Office offered a Penny stamp. Cards became even more popular when they could be posted in an unsealed envelope for one halfpenny. Christmas cards became truly popular when printing improved and cards could be produced in large numbers, around 1860. By the early 1900s, the custom had spread over Europe and especially in Germany.
Early cards usually pictured Nativity scenes, but in the late Victorian times, robins and snow-scenes became popular because the postmen wore red uniforms and were nicknamed ‘Robin Postmen’. Snow-scenes were also popular because they were a reminder of the very bad winter of 1836.
Snow scenes reflected the snowy and often harsh northern hemisphere winters when opening and reading Christmas cards was an enjoyable family experience. In 1860, Charles Goodall & Son, a British publisher of visiting cards, began mass producing cards to be used for visits during the Christmas period. These Christmas and New Year’s visiting cards were decorated with simple designs such as a twig of holly or flowers.
Sales of cards grew and designs and sizes changed. The first cards were meant to appeal to the masses and encourage them to send large numbers by post, so rather than focus on religious images, they showed sentimental or humorous images of family and children, fanciful designs of flowers, fairies, or reminders of the approach of spring. Religious themes of nativity scenes, children looking at the manger, or angels and candles remain popular to the modern day.
Cards could be shaped like bells, a fan, a crescent, a circle, or a diamond and were folding, decorated with jewels, iridescent, embossed, and carried either simple Christmas and New Year greetings or had verses and carols written in them. The next year, Mr W.C.T. Dobson produced a sketch symbolizing the ‘Spirit of Christmas’ which sold many more than the previous thousand and the novelty caught on.
Many artists became famous for their annual illustrations that became postcards and cards. Printing technology became more advanced in the age of industrialisation and the price of card production dropped. With the introduction of the halfpenny postage rate, the Christmas card industry industry increased until in 1880 11.5 million cards were produced.
1818 ca. Elegant black evening dress as would have been worn in the times of Jane Austen when attending evening events, such as dinners, concerts, musical evenings or the opera. British, Empire style, or high-waisted dress of machine-made silk net, embroidered with silk, trimmed at the hem with padded black satin rouleaux and rosettes, long straight sleeves under shoulder puffs. Machine-made net was a very popular background for embroidery and laces in early 1800s and the airy texture suited loose and flowing Empire style fashions. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK. collections.vam.ac.uk.
Fashion Women 1815-1819 History Notes Book 28 https://books2read.com/SuziLoveFashionWomen1815-1819
1805-1810 ca. High-waisted evening gown, French, and shawl. Typical of the dresses and shawls in the wardrobe of every woman in the times of Jane Austen. Evening dress of white muslin, embroidered all over in white cotton in French knots, with collar, hem, and centre stripe in chain stitch, low square neck adjusted with draw-cord, high waist, skirt gathered at back, short sleeves with vandyke trim.
Typical Neo-classical dress imitating Greek and Roman sculptures, white muslin fabric either imported from India or made in Europe to imitate Indian materials. Scarf of knitted silk printed in similar pattern to popular Indian cashmere shawls. via Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK. collections.vam.ac.uk.
Fashion Women 1805-1809 History Notes Book 26 What did Jane Austen and friends wear? https://books2read.com/SuziLoveFashionWomen1805-1809
1864 Silk corset, made to be worn over a chemise. Made in France or Britain. Aqua blue silk lined with linen, edged with machine-made lace, reinforced with whalebone, metal, lined with cotton twill. The front has fastenings and the back has lacings. The wearer of this corset could dress without help because the steel ‘split busk’ fastens in front. The front fastening was invented in 1829 but did not become common until the 1850s. The whalebones press into the waist to shape the hipline into an extravagant curve, to flatter and support the fashionable cage crinoline. In the 1860s women relied on voluminous skirts, in addition to corsets, to make their waists appear small.
Flossing, or embroidery, to stop bones poking through fabric, edged with machine-made lace, reinforced with whalebone, metal fasteners, V-shaped front for better fit & extra shaping. The front has fastenings and the back has lacings. There are fewer bones in the back of the corset than the front and none over the hips. Trimmed at the top edge with a narrow band of machine-made lace. Stiffened with whalebone and machine-stitched with an incised swivel latch to lock the busk fastening. Boned at the centre front, back and diagonally from the side to back and sides to front. The boning is hand-stitched into place. Metal eyelets. Lined with cotton twill. The corset reaches the top of the hips and is gored at the bust and hips.
During the 19th century, corsets were made from a variety of materials and shapes changed often. Sometimes breasts were pushed up and almost over the top and waists could be tiny and other curves were emphasized. By the end of the 19th century, corsets weren’t laced so tightly because wide crinolines created the illusion of tiny waists. There are fewer bones in the back of the corset than the front and none over the hips. From the late 1840s to the 1860s skirts were full and bell-shaped, at which point corsets were relatively short and not particularly tightly laced, since the massive skirts made all waists look proportionally small.
The corset was worn over the chemise and it moulded the figure of the wearer into the fashionable shape of the day. These shapes ranged from slender to curvaceous and everything in between during the 19th century. Like the chemise, the corset in the 19th century was made of a wider variety of materials, in this case blue silk lined with linen. It did not need to be very tightly laced, for the illusion of a small waist was created by the very wide circumference of the crinoline.
Credit : Given by the Burrows family. Museum number:T.169-1961. The donors of this corset linked it to a 1864 marriage in the family. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, U.K.
