18th century blog

I found this new database via Isis’ Wardrobe and Madame Berg.

Livrustkammaren (The royal armory), The Hallwyl museum and Skokloster castle have put their large collections online, containing many18th century costumes and other objects. The search function is great but the photo quality isn’t always the best. Click the picture to go to the website.

P.S. I just added a Databases category where I will be adding all the posts about 18th century related databases.

Armfelt by Adolf Ulrich Wertmüller. Source: Livrustkammaren.

In march an exhibition about Gustav Mauritz Armfelt, Gustav III’s favourite, will open at Livrustkammaren in Stockholm. Until then you can follow the preparations of the exhibition through the exhibition blog.

This is probably old news to most of you, but LACMA has a new image library where you can see high resolution images of many of their objects, including many 18th century clothes.

I’m very sorry I have neglected this blog for so long. I have been working on my bachelor’s thesis in History and have been too stressed out to focus on anything else, but now I’m back!

First something I’m sure you’ve already heard about elsewhere, but check out Colonial Williamsburg’s online exhibition Historic threads: Three centuries of clothing. There’s also a reproduction clothing exhibition coming soon called New Threads.

There’s an interesting exhibition coming up at The DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum in Colonial Williamsburg, Fashion Accessories from Head to Toe. Here’s what the museum website has to say:

This exhibition features costume accessories from the late seventeenth through the early nineteenth century. Women and men enhanced their appearance with the addition of hats, purses, jewelry, shoes, and more. These objects kept pace with change in fashion and present a visually rich overview of the period.

There’s also a video presenting the exhibition.

I would love to go to Colonial Williamsburg some day and I hope I’ll get to go before this exhibition ends. It runs from January 29, 2011 through December 31, 2012.

Linné painted by Roslin in 1775

The Linnaean Gardens of Uppsala are the gardens off famous Swedish 18th century botanist Carl von Linné, and the oldest botanical garden in Sweden. The gardens, and Linné’s summer house Hammarby are open to the public and seem to have 18th century events every now and then. This Sunday, August 15, there will be an 18th century market that I hope to go to. The calendar of events is only available in Swedish.

In London I also visited the Museum of Childhood, which had a few 18th century children’s clothes on display, and a doll from 1780 with a full set of undergarments and even a tiny chatelaine.

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I was just in London and among other things I visited the Victoria and Albert Museum. There are plenty of 18th century clothes on display at the museum, scattered into many different exhibitions, and I took photos of most.

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From Tidsfördrifvet, the blog of 18th century society Gustafs skål, comes this great list of 18th century clothing items from Göteborgs stadsmuseum. Click the picture to go there.

A couple of days ago I visited the new exhibition at Nordiska museet, Modemakt or Power of fashion. There wasn’t a huge amount of 18th century clothes but the ones they did show were really wonderful.

The exhibition has it’s own website complete with a database containing pictures and information about most of the garments on show. Continue reading to see my own photos from the exhibition.

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Modemakt - 300 år av kläder is a new exhibition opening at Nordiska museet in Stockholm on February 26. It will show clothing from the 1780s, 1860s and 1960s, “times when economy, new ideas and new technology strongly influenced fashion”.

Thanks to Abbyelyn on the Historical Sewing forum I just found out that Colonial Williamsburg are putting their collection online! There are lots of clothes but also portraits, prints, furniture and so on. Everything is accompanied by a very informative text about the item. Unfortunately the pictures are rather small, and I can’t find a way of browsing everything in categories (except the “highlights” selection) rather than having to search (I can’t be sure I haven’t missed something!).

Click the picture to go the collection!

EDIT: I found a way to browse categories. In “Advanced search” choose “classification is” and you’ll be able to choose a category.

17th and 18th-Century Costume in Detail by Avril Hart and Susan North contains big detail photos of garments from the Victoria and Albert Museum. There are no photos of the entire garments, instead there are detailed drawings. While these are great for understanding the construction, a small photo of the entire garment besides the drawings would have made it even better. We now only get to see a small part of the fabric and colours used. Most drawings show both front and back of the garment but a few show only one side, which I thought was a bit strange.

Each picture is accompanied by a short but informative text about the garment depicted. I wouldn’t have minded longer texts, but it’s a great book as is. This book is excellent for closeups on different trimmings and other decorations like embroidery, both for costumers and people who just like to look at pretty pictures.

John Guilford Russell, 1790

Check out the Louvre databases! Not exactly tons of 18th century stuff and not very big pictures, but still a lot of great stuff.