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Regency Fashion: The Gentleman’s Fancy Dress

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“Not only was he wearing the frilled shirt, the longtailed coat, the knee-breeches, and the silk stockings which constituted the fashionable attire of a gentleman bound for Almack’s; he carried a chapeau-bras  under one arm, and one of his snuff boxes in his pocket.”

— False Colours by Georgette Heyer (1963)

Kit Fancot, the hero of False Colours, impersonates his older brother, Evelyn, Lord Denville, as a favor to his mama. He arrives at a fancy dress party held by the relatives of Denville’s betrothed. Unfortunately, he has no clear idea of what Miss Stavely looks like.

However, everyone at the party believes him to be Evelyn, particularly since he is dressed in his brother’s fashionable dress rig, starting with the frilled shirt. No, not the pirate shirt sported by a well-known comedian in the 1990s, but similar, I daresay:

From Le Beau Monde, 1807

From Le Beau Monde, 1807

The longtailed coat was designed to set a fine figure to advantage. The tails in the back were almost an afterthought, forgotten in the evolution of the formal coat from its original function–to separate when riding a horse . What was important was the fit over the shoulders, perhaps enhanced by padding discretely inserted in strategic areas. In the same way, the cutaway design revealed the upper thighs and slim (corseted, if necessary) waist of the gentleman.

Knee breeches were de rigueur if one expects to be admitted to Almack’s, and thus the standard for all fancy dress parties. They were critical for Kit to pass himself off as his brother, all while meeting the approval of the venerable Dowager Lady Stavely, (grandmama to Miss Stavely). Therefore, pantaloons worn on the street would be right out in such company.

Besides, the advantage of wearing knee breeches becomes immediately apparent when a well-formed man pairs them with white silk stockings. The little ties just below the knee, combined with the clinging material of the stockings, draw the eye to his shapely leg, the black slippers just the thing to command admiring attention when among one’s peers (and cross old ladies).

from the Claremont Colleges Digital collection, featuring selective plates of Regency dress

from the Claremont Colleges Digital collection, featuring selective plates of Regency dress

Kit carries a hat, a three-cornered affair called the chapeau-bras. The fellow pictured above has a two-cornered (bicorn) hat. Both collapse and can easily be kept in good order by the butler or other man-servant while the wearer enjoys the party.

Snuff-boxes are very personal items in the Regency. Snuff itself can come in a variety of flavors (I’m thinking of Miss Taverner’s Sort in Heyer’s Regency Buck). Heyer completes Kit’s disguise as his brother by having him take along, in his pocket, a recognized trinket of Lord Denville’s. Indeed, a snuff box conveys much about a man’s identity in the Regency–witness a Cyprian’s attempts to engage the affections of a dour, northern Scotsman through two years of ‘tedious’ courtship, her stamina continuously as she:

‘anticipated the grandeur of which his massy snuff-box and mode of living distinctly conveyed.’

— “Clarissa, A Tale,” The Ladies’ Monthly Museum, Vol. 16 (1822)

 

 

snuff box

This silver and mosaic snuff box sold for almost $3000 recently. It was made in London, 1815.

 

 

Regency Fashion: the Gentleman’s Town Dress

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False Colours“His coat of dark blue superfine was the very latest made by Evelyn for Weston..his stockinette pantaloons were knitted in the newest and most delicate dove-colour: his cambric shirt was modestly austere, with no ruffle, but three plain buttons…his hat, set at an angle on his glowing locks, had a tall and tapering crown, smoothly brushed, and very different from the low, shaggy beaver to which Fimber had taken instant exception.”

This is the town dress of the Regency gentleman as described by author Georgette Heyer in  False Colours (1963).

The superfine fabric is exactly as it sounds–wool that is smooth, almost silky to the touch. The more narrow the fibers of the wool, the more “super” its grade. Today, superfine wool suits of the highest grade sell well into the thousands of dollars.

Tom Ford: James Bond collection, Fall 2015

From designer Tom Ford’s James   Bond collection, Fall 2015

Stockinette is “an elastic knitted fabric used especially in making undergarments, bandages, and babies’ clothes–a fine-knit, soft, elastic weave.” Heyer’s hero, the handsome, blond Kit Fancot, wore pantaloons made of this material as he strolled through London, impersonating his fashionable elder brother, Lord Denville, the stockinette fabric clinging to his shapely legs in ways that I shall leave to your imagination.

stockinette pantaloons

          skin-tight, “a la hussarde”

Cambric is also known as batiste, a soft, airy cotton that makes marvelous baby sheets and blankets. Whenever I hear cambric mentioned, I think of the Little House books. You knew Ma or the girls were sewing something very special if it was made of cambric:

“They made four new petticoats….around the bottom of the fine cambric one, Laura had sewed with careful, tiny stitches the six yards of knitted lace that she had given Mary for Christmas.”

— Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1941)

If Fimber, or any other Regency-era valet, turns his nose up at an article of a gentleman’s dress, you can be sure it must be very unfashionable indeed. Kit’s hat was discarded for his brother’s not because it was made of beaver, but that was shaggy, with a low crown. Acceptable for a diplomat, which Kit was, but not at all the thing for his noble brother.

close-up of a beaver hat--the crown shaggy in texture

close-up of a beaver hat–the crown shaggy in texture

Next post: what Kit wore to a fancy evening party, when he:

“..realized that he had been imperfectly coached: he had no idea which of them was the lady to whom he was supposed to have offered his hand.”

Regency Chit-Chat

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From La Belle Assemblée or, Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine Addressed Particularly to the Ladies – January, 1817, these amusing excerpts from correspondence concerning a county ball and feast:

The dress:

I am dressed in the flowered lustring you say becomes me so well– it really is a genteel thing–I like French nightcaps prodigiously–don’t you?  They set off a long lank yellow physiognomy wonderfully well.

Lustring fabric in the Victoria and Albert Museum collection, allegedly from a gown worn by Queen Charlotte

Lustring fabric from a gown allegedly worn by Queen Charlotte — Victoria and Albert Museum

The escort:

Mama and I are to go in the chaise and Mr. O’Flanagan escorts us–  rap, rap, rap, here he comes–no, he is not come–’twas a false alarm–  Don’t take it into your head that I am in love with the man–

Romantic rivals:

Miss Twist..–she pretends to wit but ’tis only pertness…  Miss Williams–conceited thing–she thinks she’s handsome– in her old-fashioned coal scuttle bonnet and brown silk petticoat with green flounces and furbelows–what a fright.

 

Chit-chat made difficile -- Les Invisibles Tete a Tete (a la le "coal scuttle bonnet")

Chit-chat made difficile pour le “coal scuttle bonnet”  —–Les Invisibles Tete a Tete 

Dining partners:

Sir Thomas is a very sensible man–he made me several compliments…  made Squire O’Flanagan quite jealous and he was so much out of temper he snuffed and snubbed everybody and was particularly snappish and surly to Mr. McGregor an exciseman who sat opposite him–

By Rowlandson - no further explanation required

By Rowlandson – no further explanation required

A fight:

..we heard high words and prodigious noises in the next room–  we all went to see what was the matter–when–horrid sight– poor Mr. O’Flanagan had one of his eyes beaten out of his head and Mr. McGregor lay stretched out on the floor just for all the world like a corpse.

–from Miss Harriet Wilkinson’s correspondence to her friend, “my dear girl,” Miss Louisa Thompson.

Regency Domesticity: the Reformed Rake

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“It is a maxim, not uncommonly supported in female society, that ‘a reformed rake makes the best husband.’ ” —  Ackermann’s Repository, December 1, 1816, Vol. II No. XII

In a singular letter to the Tattler, the writer offers a disdainful explanation for such a phenomenon. One has either fallen violently in love with a rake and is blinded by passion to his many disastrous characteristics, or she’s such an innocent as to be wholly unacquainted with what a genuine rake is.

“I could manage him,’ she sighed. ‘Oh, but I could!”

“ ‘I could manage him,’ she sighed. ‘Oh, but I could!’ ”

Far better to seek a man of great intellect and maturity, more concerned with the affairs of the world than the high life. One that only a bluestocking could love.

"He was lewd, lascivious, mocking..." And yet a bluestocking fell in love with him.

Balogh’s rake was “lewd, lascivious, mocking..”  And yet a bluestocking fell in love with him.

Of course, marriage to a prosing fool or some worthy devoted to his rural estate would be very dull. It is proposed, therefore, that a little dash, some elegance and the ease that characterizes the rake can be had as long as the intended spouse is endowed with a quantity of good nature.

Beware of unrestrained good nature, however. Profligate generosity has led many (see John Mytton) to throw good fortune to the four winds. Cannot marriage to such a man be made wretched when good nature:

“..induces him to sacrifice his own health to promote the jovial pleasures of his friends and acquaintance? Is it not his good-nature, that, to gratify the vanity of his wife in all the figure and fashion of high life, brings on the impoverishment of his estate? “

"...her only chance to find the true man behind the wicked facade."

“…dissolute, reckless and extravagant–and lost to the world.”

As this letter is in the vein of a good many Regency epistles, the true aim of its discourse is to praise that prized quality of the time–the quality of good character.

Good nature that is both amiable and tempered by sense can only be discerned by observation of the prospective husband.

“Do his dependents approach him with cheerful respect?  Does he disdain to be merry at the expense of another? Does he mention the absent with candour, and behave to those who are present with manly complacency?”

Regency preoccupation with character is the reason why Ms. Austen forces darling Lizzie to quiz poor Mr. Darcy. She searches for amiability despite his forbidding manner, readily admitting that she is quite determined to discover the nature of his character.

How wonderful when she does, and that it took her some time to discern it!

Regency Domesticity: Living the High Life

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The Tattler, as she(?) readily admits, has been applied to for advice not only in the arts and sciences, but in matters of astrology (“I have had money offered to me in an attempt to bribe me into a fit of supernatural occasion) and medicine (no less than three letters requesting receipts to cure corns and another for the mode to cure chilblains).

But on matters of marital discord, we find her squarely on the side of Pope, whose famous Epistle to the saintly Anne Blount is prefaced with the well-known eighteenth century notion that ‘most women have no characters at all.’

For example, in Ackermann’s Repository of Arts, etc., March 1, 1818, Vol. V, the Tattler addresses two letters from harassed husbands of the Regency.

The first from a husband who has:

“..a clever, managing kind of wife, and, though I say it, rather pretty in her person; but then she has a tongue that never lies still for a moment..”

He has heard of some rubbish that cutting the hand in a certain area will cause lock-jaw. His wife likes to cut her own bread and butter (for the servants are usually wasteful if they do it) and might he be served in his complaint if he were to help said knife along during one of her economizing endeavors?

The Tattler replies, much offended:

…if he can possibly be serious in his request, then he is a fool; and if he thinks it is a good joke to attempt to impose upon and laugh at me, I have a different word to apply to his character, which it does not become me to name.”

To another request for advice on marital discord, she is rather more encouraging. The applicant is possessed of a handsome fortune and seeks remedy for “a serious and vexatious experience,” being married to a female:

“..afflicted with the mania of always being in the height, even to the minutest circumstance, of what is the prevailing fashion of the day.”

All winter they go to fashionable parties, ball, routs, etc., their plans dependent on  his wife’s consultations of card racks and porters’ books to determine their itinerary for conquering the ton.

In summer, she must drag the family to various watering-places, for their fine country estate is:

“..a scene of dullness and stupidity, where she sees and is seen by no one(!)”

Remonstrations by the husband are routinely met with a fit of the vapors by the wife. Her much-harassed physician, when called into consultation, takes the spouse aside and castigates him for causing his poor lady so much upset. Her constitution is too delicate to bear any correction, the good doctor warns, even as he ignores the signs of his patient’s dissipation from staying out late night after night.

What, the husband asks, is

“the least painful mode of convincing the lady in question, that real happiness is not to be found in the riot and rout of what is called the high life?”

The Tattler answers by relating a sanctimonious confessional of a similarly situated female, who was finally recalled to her senses by the most persistent and patient of all husbands.

“..a little reflection, and his kind attentions, not only altered her conduct, but brought her to think so contemptibly of it, that among her friends she will sometimes allude to her folly…”

My advice? Keep living the High Life.

The Ottomann couch, as it appears in the Magazine of July, 1814, volume XII showing "great diversity of form and arrangement, and an unbounded variety of decoration." For living the High Life

The Ottomane couch, as it appears in the Magazine of July, 1814, volume XII showing “great diversity of form and arrangement, and an unbounded variety of decoration.” Perfect for living…the High Life.

Regency Domesticity: The Vacation Home

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From Ackermann’s Repository, October 1st, 1816, Volume II, the Tattler shares correspondence from a reader who is married to a Temple Bar shopkeeper.

The matron relates that business was profitable and in such a climate of prosperity her husband began to notice the fashion among other shopkeepers for keeping a second house in the country–a place away from the bustle and grime of London, for relaxation and recharging.

Appalled with the notion, she writes:

“It was in vain that I remonstrated on the inconveniences which it would inevitably produce, the probable neglect of business it might occasion, and the additional expense it certainly would produce.”

In spite of her arguments, the spirit of rivalry remained strong in the tradesman. He went so far as to hold up the example of Spangle, the laceman, who took a lease on a marvelous country home in Edmonton. Moreover, her husband had the effrontery to rely on the well-known principle that to appear to have a fortune is an easy means by which to acquire it. A summer residence is the very thing, he exclaimed, and did I not buy that handsome winter pelisse for you when you told me that keeping up appearances was critical to the status of a shopkeeper’s wife?

The result: they took out a lease on a very genteel home along a major coaching road from London, and not above four miles from the Exchange.

It was not long before the novelty of the summer house began to wear thin. The nearby turnpike rendered the environs dusty, so that the windows must be kept shut even in summer. The garden at the back, beautifully arranged with twining honeysuckles and jessamine, was nevertheless made unpleasant by the sounds and smells of the neighbor’s hog farm situated at the back of it.

The worst, however, was the continual plague of acquaintances from town. Full of excitement over the new acquisition of the “villa,” and with the easy manners of familiarity, these so-called friends of the tradesman began to make it their custom to ride out into the country for a visit, and of course, ask his long-suffering wife if they could take their Sunday’s “mutton” while there.

She relates:

“I was obliged to affect the appearance of satisfaction, and to use the language of hearty welcome, to the very people whom I wished in a horse-pond, or should have been glad to have scolded out of the house.”

In 1815, keeping a country house was not only a burden in time and inconvenience, it was a dashed expensive extravagance. The following is a list of the summer house accounts for that year, in pounds sterling:

rent – 60

taxes – 12

additional servants’ wages, board – 30

interest for money expended in furniture – 25

accidents and repairs – 10

coach-hire backwards and forwards – 10

extra entertainments – 30

“We have three children and this confounded country house,” the correspondent concludes, railing that the latter was far more expensive than maintaining and educating a dozen of the former!

A vicarage-house: "..purposed to be erected in a situation where the scenery is both rural and romantic.."

A vicarage-house: “..purposed to be erected in a situation where the scenery is both rural and romantic..” from the Magazine

Regency Domesticity: the Termagant

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Like La Belle Assemblée , Ackermann’s Repository had its own resident “Dear Abby.” Letters from Readers addressed to the Female Tattler poured forth troubles seeking advice, and sometimes advice seeking trouble.

These columns  are little vignettes of Regency life.

Humphrey Sneak’s letter to “Madam” appears in the January, 1818 issue. His trouble was his wife, to whom he had been married not above three years. A termagant, she had plenty of practice at being a shrew; she being, by her own account, forty-two years of age since the year 1804.

To begin with, her voice is shrill, and echoes throughout, notwithstanding her husband’s pleas to let their domicile be as silent at noon as it is at midnight.

She is a know-it-all–only her opinion is right, and everyone else’s, most particularly her husband’s, is wrong.

She is continually dissatisfied with the maidservants. Invariably the last one hired is always the worst she’s ever seen. As a consequence, she runs through as many as a couple of dozen a year:

“Indeed, to say the truth, very few of them stay to be discharged, for she does so tease, harass and abuse them, that they generally discharge themselves.

— The Repository of arts, literature, commerce, manufactures, fashions and politics (Ackermann’s); Vol. V, January 1, 1818

The one maid that did stay on (upwards of seven months) was hard of hearing. When she recovered this faculty, she left after seven days.

As for the neighbors, they “return the compliment” when she is rude to them, and avoid her company entirely. She complains she has “no society abroad.” Even worse, she has no companionship at home, for her husband is so ill-natured as to point out she has only herself to blame.

For solace in this marital tumult, he thinks of two possibilities. One is the notion that his wife might someday break a vital artery in one of her “violent passions.”

The other is suicide:

“..hang myself on the lamp-iron in the hall, and present myself to her some morning as she comes downstairs to breakfast, dangling at the end of a rope, and freed from all my present miseries.”

He concludes his letter to the Female Tattler in some haste, for he hears the termagant now–“coming down the stairs (!)”

This carriage dress, courtesy of Miss McDonald, no. 84 Wells-street, is made of bombazine. The wrapping-cloak is Russian "novel and striking." The little purse, called a ridicule, is of black velvet.

This carriage dress, courtesy of Miss McDonald, no. 84 Wells-street, is made of bombazine. The wrapping-cloak is Russian “novel and striking.” The little purse, called a ridicule, is of black velvet.

 

 

Portrait of the Regency: An Artist’s Love Story

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Sir Thomas Lawrence was handsome (the artist William Hoare thought he would make a splendid model for Christ’s portrait) and possessed of an ability to fascinate (no one could concentrate on an individual as he could). The great actress of the late eighteenth century, Sarah Siddons, frequently invited him to her home and he became quite a fixture in her circle of artists and friends.

For a century after his death, his romantic entanglement with her two daughters was blamed for their untimely deaths.

His biographers were a little more charitable, calling him an old flirt.

Sir Thomas Lawrence, engraving by Cousins from the Artist's self-portrait

Sir Thomas Lawrence, engraving by Cousins from the Artist’s self-portrait

Then, a century after these events, correspondence written by Mrs. Siddons and her daughters to intimate friends of theirs was published, throwing new light on the Artist’s alleged double-desertion. Letters from Mrs. Siddons reveal her anguish over her daughters’ ill health, along with her great admiration for Thomas Lawrence. There, too, are the girls’ great affection for “Mr. Tom.”

"(Sarah Siddons) was tragedy personified." -- Hazlitt

“(Sarah Siddons) was tragedy personified.” — Hazlitt

It is not clear when Lawrence made his acquaintance with Mrs. Siddons’ two daughters. Perhaps it was the elder daughter Sally who first enjoyed his attentions, as many used to think.

"..she was not strictly beautiful, but her countenance was like her mother's, with brilliant eyes, and a remarkable mixture of frankness and sweetness.." Thomas Campbell, Sarah Siddons' biographer

“..she was not strictly beautiful, but her countenance was like her mother’s, with brilliant eyes, and a remarkable mixture of frankness and sweetness..” Thomas Campbell, Sarah Siddons’ biographer on her daughter, Sally Siddons

From Mrs. Siddons’ correspondence, however, it is clear that Lawrence first sought the hand of her younger daughter, Maria.

"..more beautiful than her mother." Maria Siddons by Lawrence

“..more beautiful than her mother.” Maria Siddons by Lawrence

His suit was denied, for Maria’s parents believed she was too immature to contemplate such a step as marriage. Mr. Siddons, in particular, thought a man who couldn’t manage his funds shouldn’t be trying to get leg-shackled. Further courtship therefore had to be made clandestinely, in the Artist’s studio in Greek street, through the assistance of one Miss Bird.

Sounds like a Heyer set-up, huh?

Both girls had always suffered from respiratory ailments, perhaps caught from a trip to the Continent when they were younger. Maria in particular would suffer attacks that left her bed-ridden. When the doctor believed her condition quite grave, her pulse “galloping,” and could not assure her survival, Mrs. Siddons agreed to the marriage. Mr. Siddons agreed to relieve the Artist of his debts.

Far from sounding unhappy, Sally wrote to Miss Bird to tell her the news:

“I think Maria has as fair a prospect of happiness as any mortal can desire.”

— Sally Siddons to Miss Bird, January 5, 1798

An Artist’s Love Story, told in the Letters of Sir Thomas Lawrence, Mrs. Siddons, and her Daughters; Edited by Oswald Knapp (1904)

If illness was not working its evil way to thwart romance, certainly the methods to combat consumption were. Maria’s doctor was convinced that confinement was the best remedy, away from others, in their London house, at the very least until April. One acquaintance prophetically noted that “shutting a young half-consumptive girl up in one unchanged air for three or four months would make anyone of them ill, and ill-humoured too, I should think. ”

And then–

“Mr. Lawrence has found that he was mistaken in (Maria’s) character, his behavior has evidently been altered towards her, as I told you..”

— Mrs. Siddons to Miss Bird, March 5, 1798

The Artist was released from his promise to Maria, in the most quiet and discreet manner possible. Maria was eventually released from confinement and the family left for Bath, where she was left in the care of one Mrs. Pennington*, a devoted friend of Mrs. Siddons, so that the latter could resume her acting tour, as she did every summer, accompanied by Sally.

When Maria took a turn for the worse, Sally returned to her sister’s side, just missing a visit by “Mr. L.,” whose sister lived in Birmingham. The young man then sought an audience with her mother, seeking permission to pay his addresses to Sally, but Mrs. Siddons was not exactly encouraging.

The Artist did not take this well and, to her great consternation, Mrs. Siddons next reports to Mrs. P that he had disappeared. She warned that good lady he might very well be on his way to visit her and the girls:

“I pray God that his phrenzy may not impel him to some desperate action!”

Sure enough, the Artist, newly arrived under an assumed name, presented himself to Mrs. P at her very doorstep and announced his love for Sally:

“My name is Lawrence, and you, then, know that I stand in the most afflicting situation possible! A man charg’d (I trust untruly in their lasting effect) with having inflicted pangs on one lovely Creature which, in their bitterest extent, he himself now suffers from her sister!”

Mrs. P was all cordiality and firmness,  notwithstanding his threats to run off to Switzerland and/or commit suicide (!) Still, she was well aware of Mrs. S’s profound fear of scandal and allowed the Artist to see Sally briefly, and by these means induced him to leave the vicinity.

Get over it, she later wrote to him. His response was predictable:

“Have you ever lov’d and are ignorant that one BASE ACTION in a moment root out esteem, while love’s fibres, tenacious of their hold, take many, and days, and months, and longer, to tear from the fond heart?”

— Lawrence to Mrs. P, Sept. 8, 1798

Meanwhile, Sally wrote ominously to Miss Bird that Maria was dying, and that the invalid was adamant that Mr. L is “our common enemy.” It seems Maria had become obsessed with a novel wherein the hero had fallen in love with his patron’s two daughters, had used them both cruelly, and with Tragic Consequences.

When Maria finally succumbed to her illness, Mrs. P. related the deathbed scene to Mr. L in a way that was not calculated to soothe a man of his passion. She spared no detail, and dwelt particularly upon the promise Maria had extracted from her sister, to never marry “that man.”

“If you can sanctify passion into friendship, still you may be dear to their hearts…I think Sally will not lightly, or easily, make another election; but YOURS she never can, NEVER WILL BE.”

Mrs. P to Mr. L., Oct. 8, 1798

The Artist’s reply, in bold and furious handwriting:

"I have played deeply for her, and you think she will still escape me. I'll tell you a Secret. It is possible she may. Mark the End.

“I have played deeply for her, and you think she will still escape me. I’ll tell you a Secret. It is possible she may. Mark the End.”

Mrs. P, much affronted, replied for the last time that this latest and “unmanly” threat of suicide shall not be regarded and vowed that his letters should be returned unopened.

His reply:

“My mind..is so far quieted by your intelligence, that Remorse is no longer its inhabitant. My crime, I thought, was to Tenderness–I cannot give its expiation to Revenge.

This strange apology did little to soothe Mrs. P, by now so thoroughly aroused that she vented her hurt feelings upon the already distressed Mrs. Siddons, warning the harassed mother that scandal may still pursue them. Sally dutifully responded to Mr. L’s correspondence, assuring him that her decision against their continued relationship was final, and asked for the return of all the letters she’d written to him.

She assured Mrs. P:

“I do not think I shall ever love as I have lov’d that man, but this is certain, I LOVE HIM NO LONGER.”

— Miss Siddons to Mrs. P, Wednesday, Nov. 7

As the years went by, Mrs. P faded from her correspondence. It was to Miss Bird that Sally continued to write of Mr. L. It pained her to see him at parties, she confessed, when meeting his glance was “like an electric stroke to me.” She could scarce pass his house on Greek Street, for “my heart sank within me.” On one occasion, she bowed in his direction several times, but he ignored her.

When Mr. L finally replied to Sally’s demand for her letters, he refused to return them. Until he married, he declared, they would remain in his possession.

He never married and she died in 1803.

 

*To find humor in love, we must rely upon Mr. Pennington.  “Billy,” as he was then known in Bath circles, had tried to kiss one Miss Linton who promptly bit him on the lip. A Mrs. Leever saw the whole, criticizing the young man for his conduct, especially after he had spit blood on the young lady’s cap and burnt it. Billy proceeded to tell Mr. Leever that his old hag of a wife ought to mind her own business. Servants were called to throw the young man out of the Leever residence after he had followed the couple there, slapping the older man and pocketing his wig.

Portrait of the Regency: Vanity and Good Taste

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On the eve of the Regency, Miss Eliza Farren was accounted one of the finest actresses of her day. From her first role as Miss Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer, to her appearance as Nimeney Pimeney in The Heiress, her skill at playing a variety of characters was like Sir Thomas Lawrence’s in painting them.

Hazlitt speaks of "Miss Farren, with her fine-lady airs and graces, with that elegant turn of her head and motion of her fan and tripping of her tongue." Sir Thomas has captured her winsome nature perfectly.

“Miss Farren, with her fine-lady airs and graces, with that elegant turn of her head and motion of her fan and tripping of her tongue.” — Hazlitt

Around 1790, he painted her portrait, wrapping her elegant figure, tall and slim, in a fur trimmed “john-coat.” Some critics disapproved of this raiment, so at odds with the subject’s summery surroundings. Comments such as these did not concern Sir Thomas. After all, he was the artist.

When the portrait was presented to the Royal Academy, simply entitled “The Actress,” Sir Thomas was roundly attacked for addressing the glorious Miss Farren as a mere hireling on the stage. This criticism needled him, for it was not his art that was at fault, but his taste!

He wrote at once to Miss Farren, knowing one word from her would dispel any criticism by her beloved fans. He apologized for the clumsy way he meant to convey his own admiration for her art, which sprang

“..from the wish that he had that it should be known to be her from the likeness alone, unaided by professional character.”

— Sir Thomas Lawrence’s Letter-Bag, edited by George Somes Layard, with recollections of the artist by Miss Elizabeth Croft (1906)

Two years later, the unsold portrait and its subject had caught the eye of Lord Derby. Edward Smith-Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby, was still married to his first wife, but they were separated on account of her affair with the Duke of Dorset. His lordship, through the offices of Miss Farren, offered to buy the painting.

Sir Thomas informed Miss Farren he was willing to sell it, but the price for her portrait was now one-hundred and twenty guineas. She wrote back, expressing her astonishment and chastising him for having forgotten the original quote of sixty guineas. In the end, the besotted Lord Derby possessed himself of the portrait, if not the sitter, for a princely sum of one hundred guineas.

Unfortunately, the picture continued to plague Sir Thomas even after it was delivered. Apologizing for being so “troublesome,” Miss Farren wrote to him of additional criticisms, and would he pretty please alter the picture?

He reminds me of another earl. Or perhaps its because Downton is on.

From this angle, Derby looks a bit like Downton, I daresay.

“One says it is so thin in the figure, that you might blow it away–another that it looks broke off in the middle: in short, you must make it a little fatter, at all events, diminish the bend you are so attached to, even if it makes the picture look ill; for the owner of it is quite distressed about it at present.”

We don’t know if Sir Thomas complied, but in 1797, Miss Farren married her earl, and

“exchanged the tinsel crown of the stage for the very substantial coronet of a countess.”

 

Portrait of the Regency: Face to Face

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It’s been said Sir Thomas Lawrence’s legacy was left to “fashionable, virtuoso photography,” and not to the art of painting. His portrait exhibitions attracted large crowds, satisfying the Regency era’s appetite for more than just of glimpse of the rich and famous.

Now one could gaze as long as one liked, without appearing vulgar, on the visage of the Prince Regent, or on the bosom of Lady Blessington.

Exhibition room at Somerset House by Rowlandson and Pugin

In her recollections of Sir Thomas, Miss Elizabeth Croft describes the artist’s interest in physiognomy. After years of portraiture, he became convinced of the power a person’s facial characteristics exercised over their character, and their actions.

Once he rehired a servant he had formerly sacked. It seems the fellow was unable to find a new position, and Sir Thomas knew it was because of his chin:

“..an organ of destructiveness so strongly defined I fear he will never get another place.”

Miss Croft questioned his faith in such reasoning when he showed her a portrait he had sketched of the alleged murderer, John “Murphy” Williams. This was the man who’d been jailed, pending trial, for the notorious Ratcliff Highway murders which occurred near present-day Wapping, London, within a space of twelve days in December, 1811. Much struck by the villain’s pleasant features, she recalled:

This post-mortem sketch of John Williams might very well be by Lawrence

This post-mortem sketch of John Williams might very well be by the artist

I never saw a more beautiful head. The forehead, the finest one could see, hair light and curling, the eyes blue and only half-closed; the mouth singularly handsome, tho’ somewhat distorted, and the nose perfect.”

— Sir Thomas Lawrence’s Letter-bag, edited by George Somes Layard, 1906 (with recollections of the artist by Miss Elizabeth Croft)

How could Ratcliff Highway murderer have such a beautiful head, she asked, when he’d:

“…destroyed not only a father and mother..but an infant a few weeks old in its cradle–and all this for the purpose of rifling the till in a little haberdasher’s shop!”

Sir Thomas chastised her gently, drawing her attention to the similarity of Williams’ chin to that of Governor Wall, hung for acts of cruelty while in charge of a colony on the west coast of Africa. In sketching both, he noted:

“..the formation of the lower jaw was precisely the same–very square, with a peculiar shortness of the chin, and partaking more of the tiger than the human jaw.”

Of his own chin, he admitted:

“..there is some appearance of Fortitude, but wholly unconnected with Reason. Indeed, of that Philosophy which can mould wishes to circumstances and subdue the influences of Passion to those of Fortune, this Countenance has not a Vestige (!)”

He looks a bit sulky, I declare.

Yes, I do see the Fortitude. And Passion.