1818 December 11th A dandy fainting or – an exquisite in fits. Scene a private box opera. A dandy lies back fainting in a chair, his limbs rigid, supported by three others while a fourth (left) draws the curtain, cutting off a view of the (distant) stage where a singer is posturing. Via British Museum, London, UK. britishmuseum.org (PD-Art)
1800s Early Tattersall’s Horse Auctions, London, U.K.. Top sporting venue for Regency Life in London. ‘A mixture of persons of nearly all ranks’. By Pierce Egan. Via Wikimedia Commons (PD-ART)
In Jane Austen’s and Bridgerton times, or the Regency Era, horse riding was a vital mode of transport and Tattersall’s was the best place to buy and sell horses. Tattersall’s was established in 1773 near Hyde Park Corner for the sale by auction of horses, carriages, hounds and harnesses. Sales during the winter months were every Monday and Thursday, and on Mondays only during the spring and summer. On the mornings when there was no sale, Tattersall’s was a meeting place for fashionable sporting gentlemen.
Pierce Egan’s Description of Tattersall’s
A masquerade could scarcely exhibit more motley groups than the attendants of this place of fashionable resort. There were Peers, Baronets, Members of Parliament, Turf gentlemen and Turf-servants, Jockies, Grooms, Horse-dealers, Gamblers, &c. There you might see the oldest and some of the best blood in England, disguised like coachmen.
From: 1820 Sporting Anecdotes by Pierce Egan via Google Books (PD-150)
1826 Cartoon: A squeeze at Carlton Palace in Bridgerton and Jane Austen times. From Regency Social Life. #JaneAusten #Bridgerton #Cartoon #England https://books2read.com/suziloveYGD
Continue reading →1816 Crossing The Pont des Arts, Paris. Illustrations by Francis Courboin. via Les Modes de Paris. (PD-Art) suzilove.comThis plate depicts two women crossing the Pont des Arts, which is also known as the Passerelle des Arts. The women wear very high-waisted dresses. Both women wear a large white feather in their hats, symbolic of the white plume of Henri IV’s famous battle cry, “Ralliez-vous à mon panache blanc!” and made popular by the 1814 restoration of Louis XVIII on the throne. Restoration also brought back various styles, especially those denoting luxury, from the Ancien Regime. The woman on the left wears an ‘old-fashioned’ lace collar and the resurgence of luxury materials, such as fur are indicative of feminine styles of the Restoration period. (PD-Art) Illustrations by François Courboin from Octave Uzanne’s Les Modes de Paris. Variations du goût et de l’esthétique de la femme, 1797-1897, L. Henry May, Paris, 1898, or from the English translation of the same work: Fashion in Paris : the various phases of feminine taste and aesthetics from 1797 to 1897, William Heinemann, London, 1898. Modes De Paris
Regency Life Series: Images, information, funny anecdotes give overview of Jane Austen’s and Bridgerton times. #bridgerton #RegencyEra #JaneAusten #BritishHistory https://books2read.com/suziloveROver
Continue reading →Love the Bridgerton Series? Fan of Jane Austen? What did men wear in the early 1800s? Suits, hats, shoes, underclothing, military and bedroom fashions. #Bridgerton #RegencyFashion #JaneAusten #BritishHistory.
A Regency Era, or early 1800s, gentleman was outfitted in more practical fabrics, such as wool, cotton and buckskin rather than the fussy brocades and silks of the late 1700s. French fashions and Georgian and Regency Era fashions from Great Britain were copied around the world. Take a look at the outfits worn by gentlemen in the Bridgerton series and in Jane Austen’s lifetime. https://books2read.com/SuziLoveFashionMen1800-1819
The British Regency was the period from 1811-1820. King George III was deemed mad and unfit to rule so his son became his proxy, the Prince Regent, or Prinny to his close friends. This was the situation when Jane Austen was alive. The Regency Era was famous for its beautiful clothing as well as the magnificent buildings erected and furnished in the ‘Regency Style’ under orders from the extravagant Prince Regent.
Christmas Trees and Their History
Our modern Christmas tree tradition probably began in Germany in the 18th century, though some argue that Martin Luther began the tradition in the 16th century. An evergreen fir tree was used to celebrate winter festivals (pagan and Christian) for thousands of years. Nobody is really sure when Fir trees were first used as Christmas trees but it probably began 1000 years ago in Northern Europe. Many early Christmas Trees seem to have been hung upside down from the ceiling using chains.
The English phrase “Christmas tree”, first recorded in 1835, came from the German words Tannenbaum (fir tree) or Weinachtenbaum (Christmas tree). The Christmas tree is often explained as a Christianization of pagan tradition and ritual surrounding the Winter Solstice, which included the use of evergreen boughs, and an adaptation of pagan tree worship. At first, a figure of the Baby Jesus was put on the top of the tree. Over time it changed to an angel or fairy that told the shepherds about Jesus, or a star like the Wisemen saw.
Christian tradition associates the holly tree with the crown of thorns, and says that its leaves were white until stained red by the blood of Christ. Along with a Christmas tree, the interior of homes were decorated with plants, garlands, and evergreen foliage and in Victorian times, Christmas trees were decorated with candles to represent stars.
The early Germans conceived of the world as a great tree whose roots were hidden deep under the earth, but whose top, flourishing in the midst of Walhalla, the old German paradise, nourished the she-goat upon whose milk fallen heroes restored themselves. Yggdnafil was the name of this tree, and its memory was still green long after Christianity had been introduced into Germany, when much of its symbolic character was transferred to the Christmas-tree. At first fitted up during the Twelve Nights in honor of Berchta, the goddess of spring, it was subsequently transferred to the birthday of Christ, who, as the God-man, is become the “resurrection and the life.”
Queen Victoria saw a Christmas tree as a girl in 1832. The little princess wrote excitedly in her diary that her Aunt Sophia had set up two “trees hung with lights and sugar ornaments. All the presents being placed around the tree.” In 1841, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s German husband, arranged for a fir tree to be brought from Germany and decorated. By 1850, Victoria and Albert had Christmas trees erected in the British Royal Palaces and their children started the tradition of gathering around the tree.
‘The Christmas-tree is doubtless of German origin. Though in its present form it is comparatively of recent date, yet its pagan prototype enjoyed a very high antiquity.’ From 1873 Harper’s Bazaar, America.
A print of the royal family gathered about the Christmas tree at Windsor Castle appeared in the Illustrated London News in 1848, then in Godey’s Lady’s Book in 1850, and was reprinted again ten years later. The six-foot fir sits on a table, each tier laden with a dozen or more lighted wax tapers. An angel with outstretched arms poses at the top. Gilt gingerbread ornaments and tiny baskets filled with sweets hang by ribbons from the branches. Clustered around the base of the tree are dolls and soldiers and toys.
Christmas trees did exist in America before Queen Victoria made them famous, but mainly only amongst migrant groups from Europe. The writer of an 1825 article in The Saturday Evening Post mentions seeing trees in the windows of many houses in Philadelphia, a city with a large German population. He wrote, Their “green boughs laden with fruit, richer than the golden apples of the Hesperides, or the sparkling diamonds that clustered on the branches in the wonderful cave of Aladdin.” Gilded apples and nuts hung from the branches as did marzipan ornaments, sugar cakes, miniature mince pies, spicy cookies cut from molds in the shape of stars, birds, fish, butterflies, and flowers. A woman visiting German friends in Boston in 1832 wrote about their unusual tree hung with gilded eggshell cups filled with candies.
Not until the mid-nineteenth century did Christmas trees start spreading to homes with no known German connection. But once Queen Victoria approved of the custom of a Christmas tree, the practice spread throughout England and America and, to a lesser extent, to other parts of the world, through magazine pictures and articles. Upper-class Victorian Englishmen loved to imitate the royal family, and other nations copied the custom. Late in the century, larger floor-to-ceiling trees replaced the tabletop size.
Christmas: Tree History #Christmas #holidays #Traditions #RegencyEra https://books2read.com/suziloveHOCP Share on X
What did ladies do and wear in Jane Austen’s time, or early 1800s? #Regency #History #nonfiction Books 4 and 5 Regency Life Series. Young Lady’s Day and Older Lady’s Day in Books 4 and 5 in the Regency Life Series.
These books depict the often-frivolous life and fashions of ladies in the early 1800’s, or during the lifetime of Jane Austen, but also gives a glimpse into the more serious occupations ladies may undertake. Through historic images, historical information, and funny anecdotes, they show how a lady fills her day, where she is permitted to go, and who she spends 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. Young Lady’s Day ~ Older Lady’s Day
1826 House Of Lords In High Debate. From A Regency Gentleman’s Life. From The English Spy By Robert Cruikshank.
Light-hearted look at a young man’s day in the early 1800s. Depicts the ups and downs of a young gentleman’s day in the Regency Era, or Jane Austen’s years. Through historic images, historical information, and funny anecdotes, it shows how a young man about town fills his day, where he goes, and who he spends time with. This light-hearted look at the longer Regency years is 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. Regency Life Series Book 3 Young Gentleman’s Day.com/suziloveYGD
What salads were served in Jane Austen and the Bridgerton households?
Salads
“Persons in health, who feel a craving for salad, may indulge in the enjoyment of it to a great extent with perfect impunity, if not with positive benefit.
Oil, when mixed in salad, appears to render the raw vegetables and herbs more digestible.
Vinegar likewise promotes the digestion of lettuce, celery, and beet-root.
“Endive is very wholesome, strengthening, and easy of digestion; but when strong seasoning is added to it, it becomes an epicurean sauce. — Mayo.”
Recipe for a Winter Salad, by the late Rev. Sydney Smith.
Two large potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve, Unwonted softness to the salad give, Of mordent mustard add a single spoon;
To add a double quantity of salt;
Three times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,
And once with vinegar, procured from town.
True flavor needs it, and your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs.
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, scarce suspected, animate the whole;
And, lastly, on the flavored compound toss
A magic teaspoon of anchovy sauce.
Then, though green turtle fail, though venison’s tough, And ham and turkey are not boiled enough,
Serenely full the Epicure may say,-
Fate cannot harm me—I have dined to-day!
The Spanish proverb says four persons are wanted to make a good salad: a spendthrift for oil, a miser for vinegar, a counsellor for salt, and a madman to stir all up.
1859 Hints for the Table by John Timbs.
1800s Typical Salads: Cucumber, Beetroot and Potato, Macedone Salad, Tomato Salad, Jellied Russian and Italian Salads, Prawn Salad, Egg and Lettuce, Lobster Salad and Salad Dumas. From: Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management. via Google Books (PD-150)
