Category: Research

Posts in which we talk about research

Who’s in charge?

Updated on March 5, 2014 by Janet Mullany

Have you read Jo Baker’s brilliant Longbourn? It’s the book that switches upstairs/downstairs in Pride & Prejudice so we get the story from the servants’ point of view. Because the servants are always there, and reading that book for me has now changed the way I read Austen.

I’m giving a version of my talk on servants for JASNA in Minneapolis this weekend and so I’ve been sprucing up my material and wondering whether or not to include the strange, wonderful, (slightly icky) story of Hannah Cullwick (1833-1909) and her master, Arthur Munby (1828-1910). Hannah wrote a diary, published in 1984 by Virago Press, UK (now out of print) that gives an extraordinarily detailed account of the everyday life of a Victorian servant.

But it’s more than that.

Hannah wrote the diary at the instigation of her lover-employer-husband Arthur Mumby, who had a fetish for working class women and dirt, specifically women getting dirty. So a passage like this would get Arthur all hot and bothered:

Lighted the fire. Brush’d the grates. Clean’d the hall & steps & flags on my knees. Swept & dusted the rooms. Got breakfast up. Made the beds & emptied the slops. Cleaned & wash’d up…Cleaned the stairs & the pantry on my knees. Clean’d the knives & got dinner. Clean’d 3 pairs of boots. Clean’d away after dinner & began the preserving about ½ past 3 & kept on till 11, leaving off only to get the supper & have my tea…Went to bed very tired & dirty.

Boots, by the way, figure rather largely in their relationship.

Hannah took great pride in her strength and endurance, choosing always to remain at the bottom of the Victorian servant food chain, as a maid of all work. A lawyer and amateur artist, poet, and anthropologist, Munby had a huge collection of photographs and other records of working women that he bequeathed to Trinity College Cambridge.

Hannah met Munby in 1854 and he followed her around from one position to another, watching her beat carpets and so on, and she was fired from at least one household because of his interest in her–this was a period, of course, when women servants were not allowed to have gentleman followers. Working at boarding houses rather than private houses gave her greater freedom. Eventually he hired her in 1872 and they married secretly the following year. But to all intents and purposes she was still his servant, and Munby’s friends–who included Ruskin, Rosetti, and Browning–had no idea of the true relationship, one that seems to have been classic BDSM.

For freedom & true lowliness, there’s nothing like being a maid of all work (1872)

She wore a locking chain around her neck, for which Munby had the key, and a leather strap on one wrist as a sign of his ownership. Munby posed her in various disguises–as a man, a chimney sweep, in blackface, as a fashionable lady.

But she had an extraordinarily strong sense of independence outside their fantasy life. She insisted, even after marriage, on receiving wages and keeping her own name, and she left him in 1877, although he continued to visit her, but presumably on her terms. You have to wonder who did wear the trousers in this relationship.

And that’s the question that seems to have plagued households, particularly during the Victorian period, when master-servant relationships seem to have escalated to an extraordinarily virulent level: who really is in charge here?

So at the moment, yes to Longbourn, and yes to Cullwick-Munby, and let’s see if anyone picks up on the subtext. And I expect they will, because smart readers of Austen always find the subtext.

Posted in Jane Austen, Research | Tagged servants | 2 Replies

Eye Jewelry

Updated on March 1, 2014 by Myretta

Mrs. Fitzherbert’s Eye Miniature by Richard Cosway

The first eye miniatures were said to have been painted by the celebrated miniaturist Richard Cosway who, in 1786, was commissioned by the Prince of Wales (later George IV) to paint the eye of his morganatic wife, Mrs Fitzherbert. However his claim to being the first is now disputed.

The book, Perfect Likeness: European and American Portrait miniatures from the Cincinnati Art Museum, gives us this history of the Eye miniature:

Not only was the eye traditionally regarded as the “window of the soul” but in a more romantic vein, love was said to enter through the eyes, which first caressed and then possessed the object of desire.

While many eye miniatures were undoubtedly intended as love tokens others … were meant as memorials, as indicated by a black enamel border and a commemorative inscription to the back of the piece.

The black border indicates that this is mourning jewelry

Engleheart’s book records several such commissions including a 1783 painting of “Mrs Quarrington, her eye” which would refute the claim that Cosway’s of Mrs Fitzherbert was the first of the genre.

Most eye miniatures are unsigned, making attribution of these diminutive and intriguing works difficult if not impossible.

George IV was buried wearing Mrs. Fitzherbert’s eye miniature-a fact verified by the Duke of Wellington who took a peek.

I’m particularly enamored of the fob pictured here that has (I think) five eye miniatures attached. Who shall we imagine wore this? A doting father? A much-widowed aristocrat? A gentleman with an active love life? What a story this would make.

For a quick look, here’s a YouTube video from The Georgia Museum of Modern Art and the University of Georgia for the exhibition “The Look of Love: Eye Miniatures from the Skier Collection,” organized by the Birmingham Museum of Art.

Posted in Regency, Research | 5 Replies

Photography in the Regency?

Updated on February 27, 2014 by Janet Mullany

This is a repeat of a post from February 11 a few years ago, which was the birthday of William Fox Talbot (1800-1877) who is credited with being the inventor of photography.

As with many scientific discoveries, the bits and pieces of evidence–optical and chemical–were lying around for some time, and it took an enquiring mind to put them together.

The optical side of photography was provided with the Camera Obscura, which had been around for centuries as an aid to drawing. Leonardo da Vinci used it, and his contemporary Daniel Barbaro described it thus:

Close all shutters and doors until no light enters the camera except through the lens, and opposite hold a piece of paper, which you move forward and backward until the scene appears in the sharpest detail. There on the paper you will see the whole view as it really is, with its distances, its colours and shadows and motion, the clouds, the water twinkling, the birds flying. By holding the paper steady you can trace the whole perspective with a pen, shade it and delicately colour it from nature.

An early sci-fi novel by Charles-Francois Tiphaigne de la Roche (1729-1774), Giphantie, predicted the invention of photography.

For centuries people had been aware that some colors bleach in the sun, but it wasn’t clear whether this was the effect of heat, air, or light. In the seventeenth century, Robert Boyle, a founder of the Royal Society, reported that silver chloride darkened with exposure. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Thomas Wedgwood of pottery fame experimented with capturing images but couldn’t make them permanent.

The first successful picture was made with an eight hour exposure by Joseph Niepce in 1827, using material that hardened on exposure to light–he named it a heliograph. Rejected by the Royal Society, Niepce went into partnership with Louis Daguerre, who reduced the exposure time to half an hour and discovered that salt stabilized the image, and invented the daguerrotype.

Interestingly, neither Niepce nor Fox Talbot could draw, which is why they were so interested in artificial means of producing images. Niepce was forced to look elsewhere to continue his interest in lithography when his artist son went to war in 1814 (and may have died at Waterloo–something I couldn’t confirm). Fox Talbot continued his own experiments, successfully producing his first photograph of the oriel window at Lacock Abbey,Wiltshire, in 1835.

The photograph at the top of this post is also by Fox Talbot, showing Nelson’s column under construction in Trafalgar Square in 1843.

He nicknamed his cameras mousetraps.

In 1844-46 he published a collection of photographs, The Pencil of Nature (get your mind out of the gutter), demonstrating that this technology had both artistic and practical possibilities–in inventorying possessions, creating likenesses, and possibly also being of use in the legal system. He reminded readers:

The plates of the present work are impressed by the agency of Light alone, without any aid whatever from the artist’s pencil. They are the sun-pictures themselves, and not, as some persons have imagined, engravings in imitation.

If Talbot Fox had been born earlier, or if he had been a particularly precocious teenager, we might have had photos of the Regency. So, the kickass question. Imagine you’ve gone back in time with your digital camera carefully concealed in your capacious muff or elegant reticule (or, okay, tucked inside your stays):

Who or what would you photograph?

Posted in Research | Tagged photography | 3 Replies

Be my Regency Valentine

Updated on February 14, 2014 by Myretta

Valentine from 1790

Yes. I’m a day late, but such are vagaries of group blogging. Today, however, I am once again dipping into my handy Hone’s Every-Day Book.

According to Hone, “Two hundred thousand letters beyond the usual daily average, annually pass through the twopenny post-office in London on St. Valentine’s Day.” St. Valentine was apparently a popular guy even in early 19th century England.

What was in these letters? Hone provides us with a nice variety of Valentine sentiment. How about this one?

Haste, friendly Saint! to my relief,
My heart is stol’n help! Stop the thief!
My rifled breast I sear’d with care,
And found Eliza luking there.

Away she started from my view,
Yet may be caught, if thou pursue;
Nor need I to describe her strive
The fairest, dearest maid alive!

Seize her — yet treat the nymph divine
With gentle usage, Valentine!
Then, tell her, she, for what was done
Must bring my heart and give her own

Hand made Valentine 1816

Hone goes on to give us several more verses from the time and states that “St. Valentine is the lover’s saint: Not that lovers have more superstition than other people, but their imaginings are more. As it is fabled that Orpheus ‘played so well, he moved old Nick;’ so it is true that Love, ‘cruel tyrant,’ moves the veriest brute. Its influence renders the coarsest nature somewhat interesting.”

How lucky for us that lovers have more imaginings than other people and that Love, cruel tyrant that it may be, renders the coarsest nature somewhat interesting. I hope your Valentine got his missive in the twopenny post in time.

Posted in Frivolity, Regency, Research | Leave a reply

Dining at the Palace

Updated on January 31, 2014 by Myretta

I have a fun book from Royal Collection Publications called For the Royal Table, Dining at the Palace. I wouldn’t actually classify this as a research book, as it skims through the history of entertaining by England’s monarchs with a focus on Elizabeth II. No index to speak of, but lots of great pictures and some fun tidbits from dinners held by past monarchs.

For example, in discussing glassware, it mentions that

Glassware ordered by George IV – 1808

In 1802 Frederick, Duke of York (second son of George III) ordered a complete glass service for a dessert course from the chandelier manufacturers Hancock, Shepherd & Rixon. This was intended for a banquet to entertain Tsar Alexander I of Russia. It was not only a service of drinking glasses; it included elaborate candelabra, known as lustres, and dessert stands for displaying fruit. Glass was considered an elegant alternative to porcelain for showing off the dessert course.

Carême in the kitchen – Brighton Pavilion

Antonin Carême, the only French chef to work for the royal family, is well represented. Although Carême remained in England only six months, he was busy.

He invented dishes such as Pike à la Régence – a pike stuffed with quenelles of smelt and crayfish butter, and dressed with truffles, crayfish tails, sole fillets and bacon and garnished with truffles, slices of eel, mushrooms, crayfish tails, oysters, smelts, carp roes and tongues and 10 garnished skewers of sole, crayfish and truffles. Just a light lunch for Prinny.

Banqueting Table – George IV Coronation

Carême was also big on food as decoration. He decorated the table with structures resembling architectural follies and ruins, using any material available – from icing sugar and confectioner’s paste to cardboard, wood, glass, silk, sugar, powdered marble, way and coloured butter. Not something you’d want for dessert.

He was around long enough to produce an over-the-top banqueting table for George IV’s coronation.

The accounts for the decoration of the banqueting table… include a detailed carpenters bill for a large ornamental temple for the table with eight reeded columns and four circular pedestals for figures at the angles, with four entablatures over to support a dome. The wooden structure would have been decorated with sugar and marzipan and further edible items. Indeed, after the King had left the banqueting table, the guests destroyed all the edible parts of the decoration in their desire to keep a souvenir of the event.

And speaking of desserts, they weren’t too puny before Carême arrive. Newspapers described the the dessert course of a banquet held for George III at Windsor thus:

The ornamental parts of the confectionery were numerous and splendid. There were temples four feet high, in with the different stories were sweetmeats. The various orders of architecture were also done with inimitable taste… the dessert comprehended all the hothouse was competent to afford — and, indeed, more than it was thought art could produce at this time of year. There were a profusion of pine[apples], strawberries of every denomination, peaches, nectarines, apricots, cherries of each kind, from the Kentish to the Morella, plus and raspberries with the best and richest preserved fruits, as well as those that are in syrup.

Voila! Dessert! Sort of makes your strawberry shortcake look pretty paltry, doesn’t it?

This is a fun book with interesting tidbits, but not something you absolutely need in your reference library. Heaven knows why I have it.

What would you recommend for food references for our period?

Posted in History, Regency, Research, Risky Regencies | 1 Reply