More 18th Century Jewelry Examples

My previous post on 18th Century Jewelry has been very popular, so I thought I would follow it up with a post filled with pictorial examples of what was worn at this time. All of these were pulled from Wikimedia Commons. In the pictures I was able to find below, I noticed that there are two types of neckwear. A simple ribbon or pearls.

Pearls
I was able to find three examples of women wearing pearls. In my last post about jewelry I stated that Mrs. Adams’ pearls actually were not real, so it's likely that these pictured below were not either.

1776
The woman below has a rather large neckpiece that goes from her neck down to the top of her dress. The necklace also has a cameo type thing, and two matching pearl bracelets with similar cameos. Also interesting to note in this painting is this woman's earrings. They seem to also be made of pearls and are rather large.


1780-1800
The woman below has a more simple set of pearls on. You can see that her necklace is tied in the back with a ribbon. Similar to the painting above, she also has a matching set of pearl bracelets. It's important to note as well that the pearls here and above are rather large and round. These are not delicate pearl necklaces.


1777
Here is one last example of pearls. This is a drawing, so it's a little harder to see them, but you can tell she has one strand around her neck. They do not seem to be as perfectly round as the two depicted above either.



Ribbon
These pictures below show a more simple neck ornament of ribbon. The pictures I have here show a simple black, thin ribbon, between 1/8 inch and 1/2 inch. I have also seen a few pictures where the ribbon was thicker, maybe almost an inch and a half to two inches, and it was also black.

1771-1772
The woman below is wearing a thin black ribbon in the style we would call a 'drop' necklace. The ribbon goes around her neck and then drops down to the top of her dress in a 'Y" shape. It's hard to tell how she achieved this, but by zooming in you can see that most likely she just doubled up the piece of ribbon and looped it through itself in the front and tucked the end in the top of the dress.


1773
Below is a fun portrait that has a lot of neat things going on, but as far as her neckwear is concerned, it looks like she is wearing a black silk ribbon that is a half inch thick. It is tied in the back and it also has a drop with a good size cross on the end of it. It looks to me like she made a small loop of ribbon, slid the cross on it, and then tied that to the front of the loop of ribbon going around her neck. Pretty simple to do.


1770
This little girl below has a similar necklace to the one shown in the first painting. This shows that this kind of neckwear wasn't only for adults. It's hard to tell if this ties in the back or not, but the double ribbon in the front tells me that most likely it's not and it put together in the same way as the first painting.


1790
This painting below is a little later than the others, but I really like it because it's not a 'portrait' so to speak. It depicts someone of the 'everyday' wearing a ribbon necklace. Unlike the others though, she has the ribbon tied in a knot in the front, close up it looks like maybe a thin silk that is a forest green (maybe black) color. Again this looks like it is a half-inch thick.



I hope these examples give you a better idea of the type of necklaces an 18th century woman would have worn. As you can see it wasn't anything too complicated and relatively simple to duplicate.

Authentic Cartridge Pouch

The U.S. Army Center of Military History website has a monthly artifact of the month. For July the artifact was a Revolutionary War cartridge pouch that they have in their collection.


Contrary to popular belief, American soldiers in the Revolutionary War generally carried cartridge boxes, rather than powder horns and shot pouches. The cartridge box held fixed cartridges of paper for faster loading, even in damp weather. This Pattern 1777 cartridge box represents one of the Army’s first attempts at standardizing military equipment.

Hem Stitching

Recently on one of the message lists I follow there was a bit of discussion regarding hand sewing. We were talking about its benefits, which are many. You can take it with you anywhere (dentist office, car ride, child's sports game). You generally have more control over your stitches, which is very helpful if you are new to sewing. It is more authentic. The sewing machine did not come into being until the early 1800s, so although it is a quick alternative, nothing at the time we are reenacting would have been sewn by machine. Now, even though this is true, there are times when it is still acceptable enough to use a machine, so don't think I am telling you to never use one, we were just having a discussion about the benefits of hand sewing and that is one of the benefits!

I personally have used a combination of hand sewing and machine sewing in making my garments. Usually if the seam cannot be seen, I will use the machine, but anything that can be seen will be hand sewn. I am not wholly opposed to hand sewing a garment inside and out, I have done this with one of my husband’s shirts, but it is more time efficient to use the machine where it won’t be seen anyway.

In the midst of this lovely conversation, one of the members of the list shared some great information about stitching a hem. Her name is Steph and she is a member of The Hive Online and The Ladies of Refined Taste. I got permission from her to share the information here with you. I hope you find it as interesting and useful as I did!

In our recent discussions on hand sewing, I'd like to offer up a few period examples of hemstitching. Notice how these are not rolled hems as you might think, rather (1/4" approximately) folded hems. Here's some inspiration for your fine hand sewing...

1. Pretty Girl with her Apron before the Candle

http://lwlimages.library.yale.edu/walpoleweb/oneITEM.asp?pid=lwlpr02989&iid=lwlpr02989
This one is such a gem -- there are soooo many details here. If you zoom in you can see the stitches on the hem of her handkerchief. Notice the straight pin holding it shut -- love that!

2. Portrait of Thaddeus Burr by Copley

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:John_Singleton_Copley_005.jpg
Look at how the sleeve ruffles are hemmed -- see how they are depicted by a band of shading.

3. Portrait of Samuel Quincy

http://www.abcgallery.com/C/copley/copley75.html
Take a gander at the work on this minister's collar -- you can see how it is folded and the corner's finished. Thank you Mr. Copley!

4. Portrait of John Hancock

http://www.abcgallery.com/C/copley/copley40.html
Check out those sleeve ruffles -- how fine the linen is and how they are finished with a folded hem

And there are many, many more examples -- on bosom ruffles, shift ruffles, aprons, etc. Zoom in on the details and they tell you sooooo much – And important enough for the artist to show them!!

Paintings

I adore looking at paintings from the period. I think you can gleen so much from a painting, especially from one of a scene where there are "everyday" people hanging around. I don't usually find many good ones, but I happen to stumble on a decent website tonight. It looks like it was put together by Christopher Whitcombe a professor of Art History at Sweet Briar College in Virginia. Here are a few of my favorites:

An Election Entertainment by Wiliiam Hogarth.
This is such a fun painting. I can just imagine the loud boisterous gatherings that probably were very common place at this time. Without any electronic entertainment like TV, radio, and PlayStation, people relied on the company of others for entertainment. You have men, women, and children here and I imagine they had quite the gathering. I am sure this is stylized a bit for the painting, but I imagine gatherings like this happened quite a bit.


Portrait of Mary Edwards by William Hogarth.
Though this picture was taken in 1742, the look is similar to what we might be going for in the 1770's. But what I really like about this picture is the piece she has on the front of her bodice that holds her scarf in place. You may remember from the last time I explored pictures, I found a print of a woman that looked like she had a ribbon fashioned in a similar way to hold her scarf. I am very happy to find another example of this.


Piazza San Marco: Looking South-West by Canaletto.
So obviously this is no where near America, but I just adore looking at these old paintings of a market scene like this. It just is so fascinating to me that these people lived and died like this. Someday someone 200 years in the future will be looking back at our stuff and saying "Wow ... they did that? They drove gas powered cars? Wow that is so fascinating!" I just adore looking at this picture and not seeing one car, not one cable or wire, not one cell phone, or one bright colored advertisement. If I could walk into this painting and live there, I would do it in a heart beat.


Piazza San Marco: Looking East from the South West Corner by Canletto.
I thought this was an interesting painting because all the men are wearing capes. Again this is not in America or quite the right time (it's 1760), but I think it's so cool that the men are wearing capes just like women would. I may have to research this and see if this would apply in America as well, though I think I would have a hell of a time getting Kris to wear a cape even if I had proof!!


Mrs John Winthrop by John Singleton Copley.
So of course I had to put at least one painting by an American in here. I like this one because the woman is wearing a beaded necklace. I have done a little research on beads in this time, but that's hard information to find, but I like seeing that the women wore them.


The Treaty of Penn with the Indians by Benjamin West.
Another American artist, I couldn't resist putting the half-naked Indians on my blog. :-) I just thought this was a really cool scene of men and what types of clothes and hats they wore. Luckily for Kris - no capes! Guess I'm going to have to keep looking!!

Believe me yours faithfully,
Rachel

Satirical Prints

So I was checking out the links from other regiments in the area, I like looking at their pictures and seeing what events they are planning on attending. In my cyber travels I stumbled upon this great little website called the "The Hive Online". They are in Mass and they have some workshops to help people with different aspects of 18th century living. I am not sure if the classes are open to everyone, or if they are meant just for the members of their regiment, but it looks really neat. I may have to look into their classes more.

But what I found really interesting on their site was some pictures of Satirical Prints from the late 18th century. Satirical Prints were little "comic" prints that made some sort of statement about the culture, religion, or customs of the time. These have been around for hundreds of years and are still around in all different forms today. I like these prints because it gives us a slight inkling of what people dressed like at the time. I am not looking at the subject of the print, because of course they are over-dramatized to get a reaction out of people, but I think there is a lot of value in looking beyond the subject and taking a look at what the people are wearing. It's very difficult to find paintings of women that were not royalty or close to it. A common housewife probably couldn't afford to have her picture painted, and even if she did have the money to have one done, I would imagine that she would dress in her finest for the sitting, not in her everyday clothes. You have to think that getting your picture painted in the 18th century cost quite a bit of money, so whether you were rich, poor, or middle class, if you were going to put down the money to be painted, you were most likely going to look your best. Not to say that there aren't a few examples out there of a more common experience, but in general I have found most of the paintings to be a lot nicer then I imagine the everyday people dressed. Now of course I know none of this for fact, but it makes common sense to me. These prints give us a small window into what a woman going to market may have dressed like. To be honest I was very enthralled looking at these because I am missing a few things, like a good shawl, that it looks like a common woman would have worn quite a bit. So I really enjoyed looking at these prints and getting a feel for the more everyday look.

Here is one of the prints I really liked (Picture is clickable for the original site, that this came from):

In this print the girl is wearing two skirts, and she has one tucked up, she also has a small shawl that is tucked into a band of some sort across the chest. I have not seen this kind of thing anywhere else, but I think it makes sense, because one may not want to wear a large shawl that would be tucked into the apron, a smaller one may be more sufficient, especially if it's warmer out and rather than tucking it into the top of the dress, to have a band of some sort to hold the shawl in place would make sense. I wish there was more on this, perhaps it's a ribbon tied around the top of the dress? I also like that she has a ribbon choker around her neck, a very plain and simple one. I have often wondered if I could wear something around my neck, and this shows me that perhaps they did even when they were out doing their daily tasks.

These are a great resource for men and women's clothing. You can also see some more prints from all different dates here:

http://www.lclark.edu/~jhart/mezzoto1770/mezzodatedante1760.html#dated

I think each of these really give us a real look at the real, everyday people of this time.

Believe me yours faithfully,
Rachel

18th Century Jewelry

So I had previously posted about my request for crafts on the Historical Trekkers forum. Well I went back today and Mike had another suggestion for me:

On a different message board (the Nouvelle France section), Ike posted some pics of a Chaplet he made with simple beads and brass wire. A Chaplet is a short version of a Rosary. It only requres some proper beads for the correct time period, some brass wire, plus a round-nose pliers to do the twisting/bending, and a cutter to nip the wire to length, and a repro of an original cross for the end. The rest is carefull bending/twisting of the wire to form the wire links, and to add the loops to the bead to add it into your chaplet/rosary. This would have been a simple little "cottage industry" type craft, and could be demonstrated at many events. Just be careful in selecting the right type of beads, and the correct repro cross at the end.

I have done some beading as projects just for myself (not 18th century), so this sounds intriguing to me. I decided to take a stroll around the Internet and see what I could stir up on 18th century beads.

One of the interesting things I found was a pearl necklace that belonged to Abigail Adams, and is now in the Smithsonian. I found a website that is selling a reproduction of the necklace, although Abigail's necklace was fake pearls and the one this site is selling is real pearls. (They also have some other interesting necklaces.) On the site they have a link to a portrait of Abigail wearing this type of necklace. It looks like the reproduction necklace is all one strand with ribbon attached at the ends, so you can wear it long or wrap it around your neck a few times, I like that idea. This would be fairly simple to make, I think if I just made loops on the strand of pearls and sewed the ribbon on, I could do a pretty fair job of it. I think I will give this project a try, but with fake pearls, just like the original.

I found another interesting site along the way. It looks like they are selling beads that were actually made some time between the 11th and 18th century (If I am reading this right). They are seed beads from a company that just recently shut down, but had all these antique seed beads hanging around. I guess they were used on court dresses and the such. It sounds like a line to me, but I suppose it could be true. They are a bit expensive, but if it were true, it might be nice to have a few if for nothing else but to try and match them to current seed beads and pick a good replacement (at a cheaper price)! Here is the write-up from their site:

18th century French opalescent seed beads. On spools of wire around 14 beads to an inch. Sold by the foot of beads on wire. A pale opalescent cornflower blue. We feel so fortunate to have come acress these amazing beads. We have 8 antique spools in the colors above. The spools are of iron, wood or of a type of pressboard with the spool company "Chauny-Perigeueux" embossed on the spool. These beads came from a very old French glass house of Salvatore. Originally in located in Venice, famiglia Salvatore moved its glass house to France in the 11th century. Up through the end of the eighteen century these beads were produced and then stored in large canvas bags. In the 19th century they were strung on fine wire and wound on the spools we have today. The beads were made for costume and textile decoration for royalty and gentry. They were originally used to decorate court gowns and costumes for weddings, baptisms, balls, coronations. The company closed early in the 20th century and we have been told that the remaining spools are just being distributed for the first time.

Google really didn't come up with much as far as 18th century beads were concerned. I probably didn't try looking as hard as I could have, I will probably do some more looking later. But I could use those seed beads (or cheaper look-a-likes) to hand make crosses pretty easily I think. I also couldn't find much information about the style of cross that would be appropriate. Maybe google isn't my best research friend when it comes to the 18th century!! I may have to actually resort to looking in some books ... *gasp* ... what's a girl to do? Or maybe I will just send a message back to Mike and ask if he has more information on the appropriate stuff to use, now that's my kind of research!!

Also check on my other article on this subject, it includes paintings as well!

Believe me yours faithfully,
Rachel