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Kitty Calash

~ Confessions of a Known Bonnet-Wearer

Kitty Calash

Tag Archives: portraits

You Are My Sunshine

10 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, Making Things, material culture, Research

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Federal style, miniatures, portraits, Regency, yellow print fabric

Miniature painting, probably 1815-1820. Private collection.

The best things turn up when I’m looking for something else entirely. First came the miniature, now in a private collection, with the lovely carnelian or coral jewelry and the bright yellow dress. I’ve got some yellow cotton with a red and black print pattern in the cupboard, so this dress seemed within reach.

And then, while looking for something else, I found the right fabric! Not that I can buy it, mind you. It’s already owned and in use, in a gown at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. And not that I haven’t spent some quality time searching the interwebs for similar fabric, which can be found if you look hard enough. Fortunately, better sense prevailed and no cupboard will burst with an additional five yards of block printed silk.

Woman’s Day Dress, English, ca. 1820. Yellow silk brocade exported from India. Philadelphia Museum of Art. 1996-164-1a,b

Still, the fun bit is finding two such similar thoughts, one in paint and one in cloth, without even looking. that means there are more bright yellow Federal or Regency gowns out there. All it will take is the looking.

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Black and White World

06 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, Research

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

19th century clothing, art, art history, Fancy, Federal style, portraits, women

Isn’t she grand? She’s on offer elsewhere; I came across her while narrwing down a date for a very different portrait.

She reminds me of a Tamara de Lempicka, if Tamara and Ammi Phillips had set up easels next to each other. From her forthright, slightly sulky gaze to the exuberant folds of her gown bodice to the hints of style in the details, we can learn a lot from this painting. There’s a kind of provincial Hepplewhite sideboard behind her, set with a colorful garniture; the copper hot water or tea urn places us in a parlor. The painting frame has a shell in the center of the bottom rail, the chair a turned knob on the back upright– we are on the edge of fancy, the moment when neoclassicism really gives way to exuberance (think canary yellow rose-painted china, big puffy sleeves on printed gowns, and fancy-painted chairs).

Below, an earlier entry in the black and white world. This lady was sold at auction recently. She’s earlier than our near-Tamara above, plainer in dress, sulkier. She is certainly more academic, and somewhat better painted, in addition to being set in a vaguely classic scene, in a very neoclassical chair, draped with a fine shawl.The artists is definitely showing off some skill in the “painting transparency” department.

The lady in black is firmly set in the neoclassical period. Restraint and moderation are watchwords– despite what you may think of that hair, which is recalling Greco-Roman precedents–much the way certain factions in the Revolutionary period were driven by piety and discipline. Politics and national ethos or mood are embedded visual culture then as now, and even in these portraits, simple as they seem.

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Frivolous Friday: The Pabodie Project

16 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, Events, History, Living History, Making Things, material culture, Pabodie Project

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

19th century clothing, authenticity, fashion, Federal style, interpretation, Jane Pabodie, portraits, Rhode Island, Rhode Island Historical Society

Mrs William (Jane) Pabodie. oil on canvas, 1813. RIHS 1970.60.2

Mrs William (Jane) Pabodie. oil on canvas, 1813. RIHS 1970.60.2

Jane Jewett Pabodie, born around 1771, died 23 March 1846 is buried in Swan Point Cemetery on the Seekonk River in Providence. She was the wife of William Pabodie– which one? Well, it’s hard to tell until I really dig into the genealogy. At the moment I am so besotted with this image that all I can think about is what she’s wearing!

What she’s wearing….about that. I have some work– and some thinking– to do. The cap is slightly confounding. It’s a chance to learn a great deal more about early federal caps, which is good. I don’t understand it, which is unfortunate. The asymmetrical nature of the cap is new to me- or at least I cannot think of another example, so feel free to school me, people. But really: it is asymmetrical! With a ruffle on what is the right side of her head, and a… pinked? Van Dyked? Prairie pointed? band that runs from her left ear around to the back of her right ear? I’m confused. It would make more sense if the cap had slipped, but why would the Pabodies pay for a painting that recorded such a thing?

Honestly, I think the only way to really understand the cap is to make the cap. In muslin first, thankyouverymuch, I’m not that crazy.

Detail, Mrs William Pabodie. Oil on canvas, 1813. RIHS

Detail, Mrs William Pabodie. Oil on canvas, 1813. RIHS

The chemisette is more straightforward, being made of a sheer figured or embroidered cotton with a slightly gathered collar embellished with floral whitework embroidery. That I think can manage, at least in the basic construction (fabric, well, I’m looking).

Of course, why do I feel the need to manage all of this, with a deadline now less than eight weeks away? For a program, of course– I have only to write the copy for it. The idea (for me, anyway) is to replicate a portrait as closely as I can. Now, Mrs Pabodie and I are not exactly the same age, but I think I can pull this off…the cap, more troubling.

It’s an interesting project for me, not so much from the sewing point of view, but from a conceptual standpoint.

How close can I get? What does exactitude mean?

If I want to represent a character, what’s more important: understanding the clothing, or understanding Jane Pabodie? Constrained as I am by modern materials, unable to match these exactly, how do I navigate choices based on suppositions of what an artist meant to represent? Just my kind of conundrum.

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Hell is a Hand Basket

15 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by kittycalash in Art Rant, Clothing, Fail, History, material culture, Research

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

18th century, 18th century clothes, art history, authenticity, baskets, Costume, dress, fashion, interpretation, John Copley, john smibert, Joseph Blackburn, portraits, Research

Gentle Reader: Remember the post on semiotics? We need to go back to that once more.

Just what are we looking at here?
copley_john-singleton-mrs-daniel-rogers-middleton-collection

John Singleton Copley.
Portrait of Mrs. Daniel Rogers (Elizabeth Gorham Rogers), 1762
50 X 40, oil on canvas.
Middleton Collection, Wake Forest University
HC1991.1.1

Hmm…. 1762. Does that dress look like 1762 to you? Or does it resemble a 17th century garment? Check out those sleeves: scallops. The shift sleeves: super full. The line of the gown at the neck: a shallow scoop. The front of the bodice: closed.

Are those the hallmarks of a typical 1762 gown in New England, England, or France? You are correct, sir: They are not.

What’s happening here? What is Copley doing, and why?

He’s making his subject look good, reflecting her wealth and status. He’s flattering her by painting her in a faux-17th century gown, a “Vandyke costume, a popular artistic convention in England related to the vogue for fancy dress and masquerade.”* 1762 seems a trifle late for this convention, but in 1757, James McArdell produces a mezzotint of Thomas Hudson’s portrait of the Duchess of Ancaster. Henry Pelham wrote to Copley in 1776 that he had purchased one of those mezzotints, suggesting their use as references for Colonial American painters. Reynolda House has a nice explication of this style of dress in the Thëus portrait they own of Mrs. Thomas Lynch, shown below.

Mrs. Thomas Lynch, oil on canvas by Jeremiah Thëus, 1755. Reynolda House, 1972.2.1

Mrs. Thomas Lynch, oil on canvas by Jeremiah Thëus, 1755. Reynolda House, 1972.2.1

There was also a convention of portraying women in “timeless draperies,” following the school of Peter Lely and Godfrey Kneller, both late 17th-century English painters who produced portraits with generalized costumes.

Lady Mary Berkely, wife of Thomas Chambers. oil on canvas by Sir Godfrey Kneller, ca. 1700. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 96.30.6

Lady Mary Berkely, wife of Thomas Chambers. oil on canvas by Sir Godfrey Kneller, ca. 1700. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 96.30.6

This portrait by Kneller (born in Germany, he worked in England) explains a lot, doesn’t it? And this timeless convention persists for some time, and the stylization of the facial features and hair is copied by English and colonial American painters. John Smibert, long familiar to many of you, was a leading practitioner of this style of portrait, and his work would have been well known to Copley and his sitters.

Mrs Samuel Browne by Smibert, RIHS 1891.2.2

Mrs Samuel Browne by Smibert, RIHS 1891.2.2

Blackburn’s portrait of Mary Sylvester adopts two conventions at once, in a way: she’s in timeless-style drapery and fancy dress as a shepherdess. Let’s remember, too, that there’s symbolism in the shepherdess imagery, referencing pastoral innocence and Mary Sylvester’s unmarried, presumably virginal, status. Don’t believe me? Read the catalog entry, written (at the very least) under the supervision of actual, degree-toting art historians.

Mary Sylvester, oil on canvas by Joseph Blackburn, 1754. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 16.68.2

Mary Sylvester, oil on canvas by Joseph Blackburn, 1754. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 16.68.2

Where does that leave us with Mrs. Rogers? She’s portrayed in what is essentially fancy dress, holding her straw hat in her left hand (much as Mary Sylvester is) with a basket over her right forearm. You will note the open work of the basket, the delicate arches and the fineness of the base. What’s in it? Something gauzy, as light as the drape around her shoulders, with a square of dark blue silk and a fine white silk ribbon. Honestly I am not entirely certain — the resolution of the image is dreadful.

But what’s NOT in the basket? A redware or pewter mug, sewing, keys, bottle, food, candy, toys, or, really, anything of a very concrete or practical nature.

Is this image a justification for carrying a [nearly empty ] basket on the streets of Boston? Of course it is–as long as you justify walking the streets of Boston in imaginary or fancy dress.

*p.106, Ribeiro, Aileen. “‘The Whole Art of Dress’: Costume in the Work of John Singleton Copley.” John Singleton Copley in America, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995.

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Reflecting Fashion

21 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, History, Museums, Research

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

fashion plates, Federal style, frock coats, menswear, miniatures, portraits, tailoring

Whilst serving as the commandant for a research-paper writing prison*, I spent some time perusing the Met’s digital collections, in particular the Costume Institute’s collection of Men’s Fashion Plates, because, you know, stuff.

Men's Wear 1790-1829, Plate 002, 1807. Gift of Woodman Thompson Costume Institute Fashion Plates Metropolitan Museum of Art
Men’s Wear 1790-1829, Plate 002, 1807. Gift of Woodman Thompson Costume Institute Fashion Plates Metropolitan Museum of Art
John Myers. Oil on canvas by Thomas Sully, 1814. MFA Boston 45.894 Gift of Maxim Karolik for the M. and M. Karolik Collection of American Paintings, 1815–1865
John Myers. Oil on canvas by Thomas Sully, 1814. MFA Boston 45.894 Gift of Maxim Karolik for the M. and M. Karolik Collection of American Paintings, 1815–1865

I stopped at Plate 002, because I knew I’d seen that coat somewhere before. Why, yes: at the MFA in the Art of the Americas Wing, where I recently spent a pleasant afternoon with the Drunk Tailor. After some initial joy at discovering dust on a teapot, we got down to the business of setting off proximity alarms, reading labels, and contemplating  the occasional neck stock.

Mr Myers stopped me, though: what a handsome coat. High shoulder seams, long cuffs, buttoned all the way up. Nifty high-waisted grey trousers, too, and what seems to be a yellow waist coat. The portrait is dated 1814, and the fashion plate 1807.

Detail, 1807 fashion plate

Detail, 1807 fashion plate

Hmmmm…

Men's Wear 1790-1829, Plate 005, 1807. Gift of Woodman Thompson, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Men’s Wear 1790-1829, Plate 005, 1807. Gift of Woodman Thompson, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The brown M-notch collar coat is clearly a thing in 1807. It’s popular in 1802. So popular. 1802 on the left. On the right, 1812.

Portrait of a Gentleman of the Society of the Cincinnati. Miniature by James Peale, American, 1802. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2000-137-11
Portrait of a Gentleman of the Society of the Cincinnati. Miniature by James Peale, American, 1802. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2000-137-11
Portrait of a Young Man by James Peale, 1812. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1944-47-1
Portrait of a Young Man by James Peale, 1812. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1944-47-1

 

And our friend Sully paints one in 1814.

After seeing Copley and other early American painters use English prints as references for portraiture, I wondered if Sully was at all influenced by fashion plates, and then to what degree American men and their tailors were influenced by published fashion plates.

Portrait of the Artist. Thomas Sully, 1821. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 94.23.3

Brown coats are clearly classic: Sully’s got one himself in 1821. I’m sure there’s a dissertation out there somewhere on the influence of fashion plates on American men’s  fashion and representation in portraiture–  I can almost remember stumbling across the reference. So that echoes and re-echoes and reflects through time even as I recall not just the the folk wisdom about brown suits, but the significance of well-tailored suit. Maybe from 1802-1821, brown is the new black.

 

 

 

*Ah, teenagers. The Young Mr failed to complete a paper by the due date, so I spent some quality time ensuring he got back on track.

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