Going Antiquing at the Booksale

Here in New England, May through October is the traditional season for library booksales.  Many of our regional libraries hold massive sales with hundreds of thousands of volumes, featuring books old and new, on every subject under the sun.  Quite often, they also feature special rare and antique book rooms with treasures that have been priced by local antiquarian book dealers.  Today, we made a bunch of pretty nifty discoveries and came home many pounds heavier for all the books in Ashley's trunk!

By far my most favorite find was an 1853 bound volume of Godey's Lady's Book, which includes all of the original color plates.  If there's sufficient interest, let me know and I can try to start scanning or photographing the issues (or at the very least the plates) and posting them here on the blog. Here's a quick sample:

Another pretty exciting discovery were two early Harper and Brothers printings of Charlotte Bronte's The Professor and Villette.  The Professor is dated 1864 on the title page; Villette is undated, but I'm assuming it must be from about the same time because of the consistent type, layout, and binding.  As you can see, "Currer Bell" is still listed as the author on the title pages of both.

My other thrill was finding two 1953 London newspapers - one The Sunday Times and one the Daily News - covering the coronation of Elizabeth II.  The Daily News paper is a special commemorative issue with loads of neat pictures.

Ashley's highlight of the day was bringing home a 1900 edition of The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia, which collects quotations from Thomas Jefferson on over 9000 topics and arranges them alphabetically to form a catalogue of the president's thoughts.

All in all, a pretty successful booksale day!

New Book Release!

Book Two in Jenny Tiramani and Susan North's extraordinary Seventeenth-Century Women's Dress Patterns series is being released this spring!  Similarly formatted like its predecessor, this second volume will feature 17 different articles of clothing, from a gown and a jacket to stays to shoes and a host of various accessories.  Detailed color photos, x-ray images, line drawings, and scaled patterns for each garment will again be accompanied by meticulous descriptions of their construction processes, enabling the garments and accessories to be studied, understood, and even reproduced as accurately as possible.  Amazon has several tantalizing page previews up already that are definitely worth a look!

For those of you who gloried in the first installment of this book, be sure to put this next volume on your wish list now!  The V&A spring publications catalogue lists the release for June, while Amazon cites an earlier May 1st date.  Either way, keep an eye out for this newest, much-anticipated contribution to fashion history!

"Napoleon and the Empire of Fashion"

Beginning with it's official opening in Milan last year, there has been some considerable blogger buzz regarding the exhibition "Napoleon and the Empire of Fashion."  The English-language version of the exhibit catalogue has just been released, and I received my copy over the weekend.  As the official website indicates, there is currently a poll in progress to help determine where the exhibit might travel next, and in an effort to encourage you all to vote to bring it here to the US, I strongly entreat you, gentle readers, to pay a visit to the poll page and vote your hearts out!  What I wouldn't give to see these extraordinary gowns in person!

Photo linked from the official exhibit website, napoleon-fashion.com

For those of you unfamiliar with the project, "Napoleon and the Empire of Fashion" brings together hundreds of original garments, shoes, and accessories to represent a total of fifty-one fashionable ensembles from 1795-1815.  What is most fascinating and revolutionary about this particular collection is that its owners and curators, Cristina Barreto and Martin Lancaster, have assembled it around a set of key French fashion plates of the period, most of which appeared in Les Journal des Dames et des Modes (the first successful fashion magazine, according to the exhibit catalogue).  Over the years, Barreto and Lancaster made their purchases based not only on the conditions of items, but more importantly on how well they would coordinate to a gown or ensemble in color, style, provenance, and date.  After hearing Linda Baumgarten describe the difficulties of mounting delicate textiles and fragile accessories in a way that mimics drape and use on the human body (during her tour during the recent conference), I find it even more spectacular that these fifty-one figures have been fully outfitted and accessorized in (almost) all antique items, so that they appear as if they've stepped right out of the fashion pages next to them.

In both the exhibit and the catalogue, the inspiration prints are juxtaposed with their material realizations as gowns, shawls, bonnets, fans, veils, bags, and shoes almost literally come to life.  Part of the project also involved the meticulous cleaning and restoration of each item; as the curators explain in the catalogue, they wanted every piece to look as it appeared when it was first made and worn.  Back to be being "light, bright, and sparkling" (as Jane Austen would put it!), the fifty-one ensembles represent for the curators the revolution and evolution of fashion during the Napoleonic era, reflecting Napoleon's strategic manipulation of the textile and fashion industries to imagine and project a very specific and unique "Frenchness" for the people of France and the world.  As the catalogue introduction describes, mannequins approximating the body shape of an early 19th century woman in period undergarments were specially designed, though each has an identical head so that the fashionable ensemble each wears speaks for itself, creating a character and a specific social situation all its own.

Photo linked from the official exhibit website, napoleon-fashion.com

Natalie Garbett, who helped coordinate and literally "dressed" the exhibition, keeps a blog, and several of her posts detail her experiences with staging the exhibition.  Her entries offer a fascinating and unique glimpse behind the scenes, showing not only the type and degree of work that goes into putting something like this together, but also the very personal and touching stories that emerge when one works so closely with garments and accessories from the past.  Her own reproduction sewing work is gorgeous, too, so be sure to check it out!

Besides the photographs on the exhibit site, additional official images of a number of the pieces (including some breathtaking detail shots) taken by Thomason Photography can be found here.  Video footage of the Milan exhibit, with commentary by the curators, can be viewed on YouTube by clicking here and here.

Connecticut Needlework, 1740-1840 Exhibit at the CT Historical Society

The Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford, CT.

On 5 March, the weekend before we headed down to Williamsburg for the symposium and conference, we made the short trip to the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford to visit their exhibit, "Connecticut Needlework: Women, Art, and Family, 1740-1840."  The exhibit had been on our "to see" list ever since it opened last year, and we had to be sure to see it before it closed the weekend we'd be in VA.  We're very glad we did because it was fantastic and included a superb variety of rare New England-made objects, many unique and all quite beautiful.  I apologize for the lack of pictures in this post, but I promise it's worth reading!  All images taken in the exhibit were strictly for private research use according to the museum's policies, so we're unfortunately unable to share them here, but many of the items are available for viewing on the CHS eMuseum.  Here are a few of our favorites:

- Two panels of a crewel-embroidered linen petticoat dating between 1750 and 1755 (acquisition number 1950.518.0).  The documentation and family history provided with the fragments asserted that this was originally two-thirds of a petticoat created specifically to be worn for a wedding.  I suspect instead that this might have functioned as a underpetticoat, which would account for the very narrow circumference if the fragment does indeed represent two-thirds of the original garment, though that's just a personal speculation; on the other hand, though, the panels are fully embroidered from waist to hem, while many underpetticoats (like this one, which was also featured in the exhibit) were embellished mostly around the bottom third, so my speculation could easily be wrong.  Anyone else have any ideas about that?  At any rate, the embroidery is beautifully done in a stunning floral and vines patterns very representative of the period, and I wish they'd make a pattern off of it because I'd love to recreate it.

- An absolutely amazing linen bedcover, decorated with crewel embroidery, dating to 1760-1770 (acquisition number 1964.35.0).  Be sure to check out the close-up photos to get a better view of the incredible detail in this piece.  The center features an eighteenth-century-clad representation of Adam and Eve.  As I refer back to my photos as I write this, I'm amazed at how fully accessorized these figures are.  That may seem like a random and irrelevant comment, but returning to this bedcover after the accessories symposium, I'm struck by the detail here.  The woman wears an apron and a blue-beaded necklace tied with a yellow-gold ribbon; this same colored ribbon also appears at the peak of her cap (which you can't see) and is used as a breastknot pinned to the front of her gown.  She also holds a fan and sports a pair of buckled red shoes.  Her dashing be-wigged gentleman carries a walking stick and a felt hat.  This just goes to support one of the primary arguments made during the symposium: one simply cannot gain an accurate concept of 18th century dress without looking at it in the context in which it was worn.

- This red satin-weave worsted (calamanco) petticoat (acquisition number 1959.54.2) is a fascinating and unique example of regional needlework.  Its design, which integrates its year of execution - 1758 - is full of whimsy and an eye towards the fantastical.  It includes a mermaid (the symbol of vanity), a lion, a leopard, fish, stags, rabbits, birds, a butterfly, and various flowers and vines.  A sketch of the complete hem design, drawn by Linda Baumgarten and John Watson (of Costume Close-up fame), is included in the catalogue for the exhibit (see below for more on that).

- Faith Trumbull's silk-embroidered overmantel (acquisition number 1925.1.3), dated to approximately 1761.  It is one of a set of three intricately embroidered pastoral pieces, the size of which alone is jaw-dropping.  The scene measures 18.25" by 51.25" (yes, you read that correctly!).  The foundation fabric is a black silk, which means that every last inch of it has been embroidered - aside from the man's breeches, hat, and shoes.  Faith Trumbull, you may recall, is the eldest daughter of CT governor Johnathan Trumbull, whose hometown of Lebanon we recently visited.

- This charmingly adorable and stunning cotton muslin dress (acquisition number 1959.11.2) features white-on-white embroidery and was worn by a teenage Charlotte Perkins in Hartford between 1805 and 1810.  The exhibit's curators speculate that the embroidery was done by Charlotte herself, rather than by a professional, because of its relatively uneven qualities.  The muslin is extremely sheer, which means the gown would have been worn over an underdress (the display features one in pink).

The exhibit catalogue, available directly through the

CT Historical Society.

Although the needlework exhibit is now closed, all of these item are owned by the CT Historical Society and can be viewed by making an appointment with the collection's curator.  A gorgeous full-color 220-page catalogue is also available from CHS and is well worth the price.  The photography is beautifully done and it's chock full of fantastic details about the exhibit items and the history of needlework in eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century New England.  I highly recommend it!

I have also traced a couple of video links of the exhibit on YouTube, which offer further glimpses at some of the treasures on display: video one and video two.  Please note that neither of the videos were produced by us.  More images can be seen with this review of the exhibit from Antiques and the Arts Online.

The CT Historical Society frequently offers lectures, book talks, workshops, youth programs, and special events, so if you're in the area, be sure to check out their events calendar.  Their newest permanent exhibit, "Making Connecticut," provides an interactive historical timeline view of the life in and the culture of the area, from native and colonial settlement up through the 21st century.  We were able to browse through much of the exhibit in its preview form and were struck by the museum's innovative initiatives to engage the "modern" museum-goer in history.  Our father's family arrived in the greater NYC area in the late seventeenth century and we can trace their settlement in southwestern CT back almost that far, so seeing this exhibit, arranged in its timeline form, was particularly relevant and interesting to our personal history as well.  The exhibit formally opens on 25 May and we're looking forward to returning to see it in its finished form.

Notes on...

As part of our Fashionable Frolicks through history, costuming, and other topics, we plan frequently to post about books, films, or other media that spark our interest and that we hope might be interesting to you as well. When you see a post with the title Notes on… , you will know that it is one in this “feature.” We will also be sure to tag each of these posts with a label of the same name so that you can easily click on the link to the right and find all of the posts in this group. And now I present to you our very first Notes on...

Unwise Passions
By Alan Pell Crawford

The Randolph family of Virginia surely sounds familiar to anyone who has studied early American history. The first Randolphs settled in Virginia in the mid 1600s and quickly became one of the most prominent and influential families in the colonies. Among the most well-known descendants in the 18th century are Peyton Randolph (chairman of the 1st and 2nd Continental Congress, whose home is an exhibition site at Colonial Williamsburg), Edmund Randolph (our country’s first Attorney General), and of course Thomas Jefferson (his mother being Jane Randolph, sister of Peyton).

Crawford’s Unwise Passions has been on my wish list for quite some time and when I recently found a copy at a local book sale, I knew that I had to get it. The book unravels the scandalous (and true) story of Anne Cary Randolph, who was known as Nancy. Nancy’s brother was Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr. who was married to Martha (Patsy) Jefferson, TJ’s daughter. Just prior to the prologue, Crawford offers a condensed version of the Randolph family tree. While I felt that I had a decent understanding of the family, I found this page to be an invaluable help as I began reading this book.  (You can view this on amazon.com as part of the "look inside" feature.)

As an unmarried young woman who finds herself at odds with her new stepmother, Nancy moves to her sister’s new home at Bizarre on the Appomattox River.  Unfortunately, her presence only brings trouble.  She becomes engaged to her cousin Theodorick Randolph, who is the brother of her new brother-in-law, but he dies before they are married.  Rumors begin to circulate that Nancy is carrying a child, and that her brother-in-law is the father.  Suspicions are raised further after a strange night of occurrences; while staying with some friends, mid-night screams and footsteps were heard, though no one would be allowed to enter the rooms where Nancy was staying with her sister and brother-in-law.  The next morning, servants find a dead baby on the plantation, and Nancy is blamed for murder as well as incest.  The family and their friends are forced to appear in court and publicly denounce the accusations against them.  It is declared that they are innocent, but the family is forever divided by their feelings for her.  When her strongest advocate dies, she is cast out of the family and their homes and is forced to find her own way.  I won't tell you how it ends (because I do recommend that you read the book yourselves!); however, I will say that it is in a way satisfying to see how the different characters meet their fates.

Amidst the story of Nancy’s tribulations, Crawford recounts the political upheavals of the new nation, which involve several members of the extended Randolph family and other well-known figures of the time, including Patrick Henry, Gouverneur Morris, and St. George Tucker.  I was also grateful for the extra insights Crawford provided concerning the other characters.  For example, I was very intrigued to read about Nancy's nephews.  One of them, St. George Randolph, was born deaf.  After his father's death, his uncle took him to a school in Europe, and although he was a very bright young man, St. George never learned how to speak.  He suffered additional traumas, including watching his home burn to the ground, and it is said that he later went mad.  While searching for additional information about St. George Randolph, I came across this interesting excerpt from Littell's The Living Age, which is available through Google Books.