Tea at Trianon: Late Eighteenth Century Hats

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, October 21, 2011

Late Eighteenth Century Hats

The type worn by Marie-Antoinette and her contemporaries.

A popular hat throughout the 18th century was the Bergère Hat (French for shepherdess). Made of straw with a shallow crown and flat brim, this hat was worn perched upon the head or with the brim folded back or turned down. A wide ribbon tied in an easy but artful bow under the chin would keep it securely upon the head. In the portraits below, both women are wearing this type of hat. The lady on the left, from Brittany, has a wide brim and a veil attached. An ostrich feather and flowers adorn the brim of the lady on the right, who happens to be the famous painter Elisabeth Vigee Lebrun. (Read entire post.)