18th century blog

Via Costumes, Cats and the 18th Century, a great online shoe museum called Shoe Icons. Go directly to the 18th century section here.

I was just contacted by this new site, Creative Spaces, which is like a museum community, and it looks like it could be really fun. You can search the collections of nine British museums and add things to your favourites, start groups and so on. I have started exploring it but haven’t tried all the features yet. The site isn’t completely finished yet and it doesn’t work perfectly, but I think it’s very promising!

You can see my profile here, and of course I started an 18th century fashion group.

Yet another great museum database, IMATEX is the database of the Textile Museum and Documentation Centre in Terrassa. Lots of amazing 18th century clothes, especially jackets.

On the website of the Finnish national gallery you can search artworks by time period (just click “artworks”), and there are lots of 18th century ones.

I came across the Spanish museum Museo del traje’s website and figured out how to search their collection. They have lots of beautiful 18th century clothes. Click the picture above to go directly to the search engine.

If you know Spanish you won’t need any help, but if not, I wrote “indumentaria historica” (a term I found elsewhere on the site and seemed to mean something like historical clothing) in the “Búsqueda General” search field and 1700-1799 in “Datación”. You can’t write directly in the “Datación” field, you click the “Fechas/Periodos” button and write the first and last date you want in the two “Año” fields and then press “Aceptar”. Finally press the “Buscar” button.

That seemed to get all the 18th century clothes, but if you know Spanish and a better way to search let me know in the comments.

Here’s another great database to check out. Joconde is a catalogue of French museum collections. Go to the advanced search and write 18e siècle in the “Période/Datation” box and you’ll get all the 18th century stuff. I found lots of great paintings, objects and clothes.

I posted earlier about the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 18th century European dress page, but you should check out their costume database as well.

Click the picture above to watch a podcast about this dress, created by Rose Bertin and probably worn by Marie Antoinette. The dress belongs to the Royal Ontario Museum but will apparently be exhibited at Versailles next year March 16 to June 14, as part of an exhibition about 17th and 18th century court dress. I’ll hopefully visit!

Sofia Magdalenas brudklänning i tidens smak by AnneMarie Dahlberg
This is a tiny little book sold at the Swedish museum Livrustkammaren. It’s about the wedding dress of Sofia Magdalena who later became queen of Sweden. It tells of the wedding and of the construction of the dress, and contains x-rays of the dress bodice. A few other dresses and objects are also shown. There are no actual descriptions on how to go about making the dress, but it’s still useful if you’re interested in making 18th century clothes. It’s an interesting little book with many pictures, and it’s very cheap. if you’re ever at Livrustkammaren I recommend picking it up.

Another Livrustkammaren tip is the pattern of Gustav III:s wedding suit also sold in the museum shop.

The 28th and 29th June there will be an 18th century market at the Danish manor museum Gammel Estrup.

Come and visit the 1700s weekend here at Gammel Estrup, where the courtyard will be bursting with life and sound. The jugglers and fire-eaters will show what they can do, musicians will play lively old folk tunes and there are rumours that two headstrong noblemen will repeatedly get into argument and duel violently with each other. Dressed in clothes from the 1700s, the staff of the museum and a group of volunteer helpers will sell things at market stalls, serve food and drink in the coffee house and the secret bar, and ensure that there is music and entertainment.

Read more at the Gammel Estrup website.

Another 18th century related exhibition in Stockholm! This time it’s at Stockholms stadsmuseum and the exhibition is called Bellman, Sevenbom och Prinsessan. The description at the website says it’s about “filth, luxury and everyday life in 18th century Stockholm”. I have no idea what’s going to be shown, but it sounds great.

The Swedish national museum will exhibit over 100 paintings by Alexander Roslin from September 27 2007 to January 13 2008. There will also be two lectures. Click the portrait to go to the exhibition website.

Tidens Tøj

This an “Internet exhibition” of clothes ranging from the 1700s to the 1980s, and they have quite a lot of stuff in the 1700s section. The photos are great and there are even patterns for some of the clothes! The site is in Danish but I think you can figure out the navigation even if you don’t know the language. There are also long descriptions of every garment, but they’re in Danish too of course. You can see the clothes in real life at the Danish national museum.

The opening of the 18th century weeks at Skansen was yesterday. Here are some photos of my outfit and Skogaholm manor at Skansen.

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