Gifts of Grandeur: Painted Silk Velvet Panels from a Reticule, 1820-1830

Silk Velvet Panel
England, 1820-1830
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Painted between 1820 and 1830, these silk velvet panels were intended to be used in the construction of a reticule (also known as “indispensibles”). Ostensibly purses, reticules were used in the early Nineteenth Century by women to carry necessities such as smelling salts and a handkerchief. A lady might often make and decorate her own reticule at home using a store-bought lightweight frame of silver or steal with chain handles.

Amateur artists often painted onto silk velvet pieces which could be incorporated into a variety of projects. The painted velvet, owing to the pile of the fabric, afforded an appealing sense of depth and richness. It was also an interesting visual counterpoint to the preferred method of the Eighteenth Century—painting on silk taffeta.

These panels were surely painted at home by a now unknown lady. Both show a lively scene of flowers and butterflies against a ground of gold silk velvet. The shape suggests that they were meant to be sewn onto a reticule frame, but, it somehow never made it. Perhaps they are preserved because of it.

Unusual Artifacts: Harry Randall's Dressing Case, 1840-60

Dressing Case of Harry Randall
1840-60
This and all related images from the
Victoria & Albert Museum

This dressing case was used by the leading music hall comic and “pantomime dame” Harry Randall (1860-1932) as a make-up box. The fine quality of the box and its handsome fittings mark of the status that Randall reached as a performer. Curiously, this was the only personal possession of Harry Randall's that was preserved by his family.

Randall's first professional appearance was in 1884 at Deacon's Music Hall in Islington. He was very close friends with champion dancer Dan Leno and, like Leno, Randall became known for his comedy character songs and his pantomime dames, several of which he performed in pantomimes with Leno. He became so well known that his name was used in the rhyming slang for 'candles' which became known as “Harry Randalls,” or simply “Harrys.”

The wooden dressing case boats inlaid brass edging to the lid and sides. The lid of the box is lined with ruched and padded blue velvet, around which there is a dark blue leather border stamped with a gilt foliate pattern.


The box contains a removable wooden tray divided into six compartments, three of the compartments are lined with blue leather; two with pads of blue velvet and one without lining but with a wooden lid with a silver knob.



The tray contains a wooden lidded compartment, two small round glass jars with silver lids, a long glass tray with a pierced and chased silver lid and a compartment with indentations for tweezers, a corkscrew, a button hook, an awl, manicure scissors and a nail file with a mother-of-pearl handle. The main body of the dressing case has four deep compartments, three containing silver-lidded jars, and one empty with a wooden lid with a silver knob, similar to the wooden lid in the tray but not the same size.


The case was made in London between 1840-1860 by J.J. Mechi. It is marked:

'No.4 LEADENHALL ST. LONDON. J.J.MECHI. To prevent fraudulent imitations signs all his articles thus without which NONE ARE GENIUNE.'
'J.J.Mechi'

When the case was donated to the V&A, the donor, a relative by marriage to Harry Randall, wrote: "I am the current custodian of his travelling box in which he kept his make-up. It has been passed down through the family originating from his sister in law Mrs Annie (Nancy) Randall who was married to Alf Randall, Harry's brother. She had everything belonging to Harry Randall, his make-up box, his scrap book, his chair and his sheet music. After my Great Aunt Nancy died everything of Harry's was thrown out, except his make-up box which my father's sister kept. At this time it still had his original make in on the jars but when my father's sister died and I became the new owner of the box, all the make-up had been washed out by my aunt, unfortunately."

Gifts of Grandeur: The Balmoral Brooch, 1895

Commemorative Brooch
Collingwood & Co., 1895
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Still in its original presentation box, this commemorative brooch was given to the actress Winifred Dolan (1867-1958) by Queen Victoria following Dolan’s special command performance of R. C. Carton's play “Liberty Hall.” The play was performed at Balmoral Castle on September 16, 1895. In the play, Miss Dolan played the role of “Miss Hickson.” The brooch was made by Collingwood & Co. especially for the Queen. Collingwood created several such commemorative pieces which Queen Victoria gifted to visitors or special guests.

As was the style of the time, the jewel is designed as bar brooch featuring the arms of the Royal Victorian Order, enameled in red on a gold base with six imitation pearls. The presentation box of green leather is trimmed with gold and lined in beige satin and velvet. 

The Art of Play: The Wellington Mr. Punch, c. 1925

Professor Wellington's Mr. Punch
Circa 1925
This and all related images from:
The Victoria & Albert Museum

This handsome Mr. Punch was once used by Yarmouth's Professor Wellington--a celebrated Punch & Judy man of the first half of the Twentieth Century.  This glove puppet is part of a varied and beautiful set of Punch and Guignol puppets which belonged to Wellington.

As is the nature of Punchinellos, he features a painted wooden head, hands and feet.  His green and black velvet hat is trimmed with holden braid which matches the trim on the green panel at the front of his scarlet velvet coat.  Black breeches and a yellow ruff are also constructed of velvet.  Two wooden buttons adorn his ensemble.

History's Runway: A Silk and Velvet Sack-Back Gown and Petticoat, 1774-1890

Sack-Back Gown
Made in Scotland, 1774-1775
Altered between 1880 and 1890
The Victoria & Albert Museum

As we know, a sack-back gown, the predominant style of women’s fashions of the Eighteenth Century, is created from a single piece of fabric pleated and stitched at the back of the neck, creating an open front. The style evolved from a sort of loose negligee which was worn privately. By the 1770s, the fashion had become a more formal type of dress meant to be worn in public at important events, the opera, the theatre and at stylish dinner parties.

What sets this sack-back apart is the use of velvet. At the time, these gowns were made of woven fabrics which were printed after the weaving process. Here, the textile of silk has been combined with velvet—a technique unique to France--which created a fabric with vertical bands of ivory and pink silk alternating with stripes of floral chiné velvet. Records with the dress report that the textile cost a shocking 36 shillings a yard. The gown and petticoat are constructed of about 17 yards. Today, the fabric alone would have cost approximately £2,200—over $3400 U.S. 

While the fabric was imported from France, the gown itself was constructed in Scotland. The original garment was made between 1774 and 1775. Alterations were made to the gown between 1880 and 1890 when it was used as a costume for fancy dress parties. The ensemble was, for many years, part of the Castle Howard Costume Collection before being sold by Sotheby’s to the V&A. 

Unusual Artifacts: Italian Silk Velvet Woven with Metallic Threads, 1450-1500

The Victoria & Albert Museum

In the late Medieval period, silk velvets were considered the most luxurious textiles—the stuff of courtiers and clergymen throughout Europe. By the Fifteenth Century, the most elegant silk velvets were produced in Italy as Italian weavers grew more proficient in producing more complex designs incorporating colored silks and gold threads.

This Italian example, made between 1450 and 1500, is considered a traditional “pomegranate pattern”, but it more closely resembles a thistle than it does a pomegranate. The center motif is outlined in dark emerald green, filled in with gold, and peppered with deep red “seeds.” This is surrounded by gold leaves, and green flowers, within a wine-colored trefoil shape.

Saturday Sumptuousness: The Blakemore Velvet Jacket , 1810

Silk Velvet Jacket with Metallic Braid and Embroidery, 1810
The Victoria & Albert Museum

The sleeve of this exceptional velvet jacket features a very special adornment—a tablet-woven braid made from many colors of silk thread.  The various threads form delicate stripes.  The lower  portion of the sleeve has been embroidered with metal thread across the width to form more complex patterns.   Similar metallic threads adorn the rest of the jacket, however these seem unremarkable when compared with the exquisite majesty of the short length of embroidery which decorates each cuff.

When it was acquired by the Victoria & Albert Museum, this jacket was believed to have been made in North Africa, however further research showed that it was made in Albania.  This jacket is unusually similar to a jacket and waistcoat which were purchased by the English poet Lord Byron in Tepalene, Albania in 1809.

Made for a man, the jacket is made of red silk velvet with a small round opening for the neck.  The garment was designed to be worn open at the front as there are no fastenings and no evidence of any ever having been included.

The body of the jacket is lined in red cotton, except for inside the lower portion of the sleeve which is lined with green silk velvet. This bit of green lining would have been visible when the jacket was worn.

History's Runway: The Rogers Half-Mourning Dress, 1889-1892

Day Dress
Paris, c. 1890
This and all related images from:
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Records tell us that this dress once belonged to either Cara or Annge Rogers—the daughter of an American industrialist of great means. Cara would later become Lady Fairhaven—one of what was known as a “Dollar Princess.” These wealthy American young ladies came to Britain seeking titles and married into impoverished aristocratic families—providing them with the funds they needed and getting the title that was so coveted. 

In the 1880s and 1890s Cara kept full wardrobes in London, Paris and New York which she shared with her sister. This is one of them. This French formal day jacket and skirt is made from ivory figured silk which has been overlaid with chiffon and ribbons of black velvet. Machine lace and ivory velvet lead to the bustle. Such an outfit would have been suitable for a period of half-mourning, which is something both sisters were likely always in.

History's Runway: A Velvet Court Suit, 1899

Curiously, though fashions had changed considerably for daily attire by the late Nineteenth Century, "court suits" still resembled the type of clothes a late Eighteenth-Century gentleman might have worn. As the curators of the V&A describe court clothes, "They were cut in the style of fashionable 1790s men's dress, with waistcoat, tailcoat, knee-breeches worn with silk stockings, buckled shoes, a sword with a cut-steel hilt and a bicorne hat."

Thankfully for the men of the era, these uncomfortable suits were not worn very often. Court suits were worn for important cermonial occasions and at the Monarch's court.

This suit belonged to one Sydney Vacher who wore this court suit for the laying of the foundation stone of the Victoria and Albert Museum on May 17, 1899. Vacher presented the suit to the museum in 1918. He wrote, "It has just struck me would the Museum accept my Civic costume I wore at the laying of the foundation stone of the Museum. It is the ordinary civilian's black velvet with steel buttons ... I don't see that I shall have any further use for it. The material is English Silk Velvet and I had it made up for me."

This court suit is actually an example of the "new style" which had introduced in 1869. Though still very much Eighteenth-Century in look, the new style included a black velvet tailcoat which was worn open as opposed to the "old style" which consisted of a velvet frock coat with fronts sloping back from the waist, stand collar and black silk wig-bag.

Gifts of Grandeur: Painted Silk Velvet Panels from a Reticule, 1820-1830

Silk Velvet Panel
England, 1820-1830
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Painted between 1820 and 1830, these silk velvet panels were intended to be used in the construction of a reticule (also known as “indispensibles”). Ostensibly purses, reticules were used in the early Nineteenth Century by women to carry necessities such as smelling salts and a handkerchief. A lady might often make and decorate her own reticule at home using a store-bought lightweight frame of silver or steal with chain handles.

Amateur artists often painted onto silk velvet pieces which could be incorporated into a variety of projects. The painted velvet, owing to the pile of the fabric, afforded an appealing sense of depth and richness. It was also an interesting visual counterpoint to the preferred method of the Eighteenth Century—painting on silk taffeta.

These panels were surely painted at home by a now unknown lady. Both show a lively scene of flowers and butterflies against a ground of gold silk velvet. The shape suggests that they were meant to be sewn onto a reticule frame, but, it somehow never made it. Perhaps they are preserved because of it.

Gifts of Grandeur: Queen Alexandra's Christmas Gift Book, 1908

Queen Alexandra's Christmas Gift Album
"Pleasant Recollections."
Britain, 1908
Crown Copyright
The Royal Collection
Image Courtesy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

A page from the album.
Crown Copyright
The Royal Collection
Image Courtesy of Her Majesty
Queen Elizabeth II

In 1908, shutterbug Queen Alexandra, consort of King Edward VII (1844-1925) amused herself—while her husband was doubtlessly amusing himself in other, yuckier ways—by producing an album of her photographs which she intended to be published to raise funds for her favorite charities. 

Though known as “Queen Alexandra’s Christmas Gift Book,” the album was actually titled “Pleasant Recollections.” The leather, gilt-tooled book with relief duo-tone photographs was enclosed in a deep red jacket of suede and velvet. Queen Alexandra personally chose the photos of her family and friends which were to be included in the book from her huge collection of personal photos, most of which she had taken herself.

We see here the Queen’s own personal copy of her book. Ninety of the 137 photos were printed in photogravure (a very detailed intaglio print from a copper plate) and forty-six of them were mounted by hand on the dark green pages, so that those who purchased the photograph book would feel that they had, in fact, the Queen’s personal album.

The book, sold at 2s 6d (12 ½ p) a copy and it was published simultaneously in England and America on November 12, 1908. Huge orders were also rushed to Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, France. The album proved incredible successful, and, much to the Queen’s pleasure and satisfaction, raised vast amount for over thirty charities of Her Majesty’s choosing.

The Interior Cover
Crown Copyright
The Royal Collection
Image Courtesy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

History's Runway: The Tomalin Tea Gown, 1895

Tea Gown
1895
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Meant to be worn for an informal tea with close friends or family, this purple silk velvet dress features puffed elbow-length sleeves and a full, long-trained skirt which falls from below the bust.

The elbow bands, V neckline and front of the skirt are trimmed with embroidered bands of lilac and green silk in an Art Nouveau design.

Her Majesty's Furniture: The Coburg Armchair, 1851

Armchair
Theodor Behrens
Coburg, Germany, 1851
The Victoria & Albert Museum
Donated from Holyrood Palace

Here we see one of a set of four ornate Gothic-style armchairs which match an impressive sideboard.  The set was made in the German state of Coburg (the home of Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert) and was sent specifically to Prince Albert’s 1851 Great Exhibition to represent Germany’s creative work. The chairs were not intended to be thrones (though that’s the overall look), but rather were meant to demonstrate the skill of the designers and carvers. Theodor Behrens, who was responsible for the carving, adorned each chair with slightly different motifs and carved an inscription, including his name, on the back of this one. The original wool tassels of the fringe were bright pink as opposed to the gold that we see today.

The set of furniture was praised by the Art-Journal Illustrated Catalogue in 1851 for the carving “in the German-Gothic style of the middle ages.”  The chairs were especially praised while the sideboard received an “honourable mention” in the jury reports for the exhibition.

The sideboard and chairs were  installed in the Evening Drawing Room, part of the Royal Apartments on the first floor of Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh, in 1852. Victoria and Albert used Holyrood as a “stopping place” when they traveled to their Aberdeen estate, Balmoral. The  palace’s Evening Drawing Room was also furnished with a suite of furniture which was upholstered in crimson velvet. In 1863, Queen Victoria commissioned a watercolor of the room, showing two of these chairs flanking the sideboard, to record her happy memories of holidays in Scotland with Prince Albert.

Gifts of Grandeur: The Balmoral Brooch, 1895

Commemorative Brooch
Collingwood & Co., 1895
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Still in its original presentation box, this commemorative brooch was given to the actress Winifred Dolan (1867-1958) by Queen Victoria following Dolan’s special command performance of R. C. Carton's play “Liberty Hall.” The play was performed at Balmoral Castle on September 16, 1895. In the play, Miss Dolan played the role of “Miss Hickson.” The brooch was made by Collingwood & Co. especially for the Queen. Collingwood created several such commemorative pieces which Queen Victoria gifted to visitors or special guests.

As was the style of the time, the jewel is designed as bar brooch featuring the arms of the Royal Victorian Order, enameled in red on a gold base with six imitation pearls. The presentation box of green leather is trimmed with gold and lined in beige satin and velvet. 

History's Runway: A Velvet Court Suit, 1899

Curiously, though fashions had changed considerably for daily attire by the late Nineteenth Century, "court suits" still resembled the type of clothes a late Eighteenth-Century gentleman might have worn. As the curators of the V&A describe court clothes, "They were cut in the style of fashionable 1790s men's dress, with waistcoat, tailcoat, knee-breeches worn with silk stockings, buckled shoes, a sword with a cut-steel hilt and a bicorne hat."

Thankfully for the men of the era, these uncomfortable suits were not worn very often. Court suits were worn for important cermonial occasions and at the Monarch's court.

This suit belonged to one Sydney Vacher who wore this court suit for the laying of the foundation stone of the Victoria and Albert Museum on May 17, 1899. Vacher presented the suit to the museum in 1918. He wrote, "It has just struck me would the Museum accept my Civic costume I wore at the laying of the foundation stone of the Museum. It is the ordinary civilian's black velvet with steel buttons ... I don't see that I shall have any further use for it. The material is English Silk Velvet and I had it made up for me."

This court suit is actually an example of the "new style" which had introduced in 1869. Though still very much Eighteenth-Century in look, the new style included a black velvet tailcoat which was worn open as opposed to the "old style" which consisted of a velvet frock coat with fronts sloping back from the waist, stand collar and black silk wig-bag.

Object of the Day, Museum Edition: The Madame Tussaud Day Dress, 1855-57

Day Dress of Silk, Velvet and Passementerie
1855-1857The Victoria & Albert Museum

Passementerie—the art of making or applying elaborate trimmings—is the heart of  this woman's day outfit with its dramatic cascade of the sorts of trimmings-- fringe, braid, gimp, ribbon, tassels and cord--which were so fashionable when this dress was made around 1855. 

At the time, most fashionable garments combined passementerie with applied bands of velvet, complementing the color and texture of the dress.  Take, for example, the fringe on this bodice/  It is comprised of strands of black hand-knotted silk with “poms” of brown chenille inserted to create a tufted look. Identical fringed trimmings on the skirt flounces must have created the effect of rippling waves as the wearer walked.

Passmenterie was also employed heavily in interior design at the time.  So, picture a woman in the dress surrounded by a fringed and tasseled interior.  She must have blended right in.

This dress and mantle of silk and velvet was actually created in France for Madame Tussaud’s waxworks to adorn a contemporary figure.  We don’t know, however, which figure wore this gown.  Madame Tussaud’s donated the gown—in excellent condition, after never having been worn by a living person—to the V&A.

History's Runway: The Shell Handbag, 1820-40

(RIGHT) Shell Hand Bag, 1820-40
The Victoria & Albert Museum

By the early Nineteenth Century, the fashionable reticules (soft purses, often made of beads) of the previous decades began to change in shape in material. Soon, they resembled the later handbag, both in construction and fastening.

Rigid shapes were constructed from molded papier-mâché or card which was overlaid with silk.  Handbags soon took new forms such as circles, lyres, urns, eggs and, even, shells with the two halves hinged with silk or leather cord. Concertina (or accordion) sides between the two rigid halves allowed the bag to open all the way without spilling the contents.   

Here, we see an example of the most popular shape—the shell.  Covered in red velvet, this rigid reticule boasts a body of papier-mâché which has been pressed into the shape of a scalloped shell with alternating daisies and roses impressed round the border.

A metal chain and cut steel flowers-shaped studs give this bag an enduringly contemporary look which belies its date of creation—circa 1820.   The color combination is also very modern looking--the sides and bottom are covered in bright pink satin which contrasts with the red velvet cover and white linen lining.