"The Family Piece": Oliver Goldsmith and the Politics of the Everyday in Eighteenth-Century Domestic Portraiture

Flint, Christopher

doi:10.1353/ecs.1996.0008

Cited by 17 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 17 publications

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“…Here, the private was made public 'in order to be meaningfully private'. 65 Nevertheless, the repetitiveness of certain poses and styles of dress across pieces gives a 'sense of what was considered most genteel' at the time, and allows us to draw some conclusions about the significance of the apron in the enactment of this gentility. 66 The fact that these women were depicted wearing aprons whilst engaged in leisure activities such as sewing, reading and writing suggests that as an accessory the apron could overthrow associations with country girls and instead function as an indication of statusan important prop in the performance of an elite leisured lifestyle both in representation and in practice.…”

Section: The Apron In Everyday Elite Lifementioning

confidence: 99%

‘None but Abigails appeared in white aprons’: The Apron as an Elite Garment in Eighteenth-Century England

Spencer¹

2018

Textile History

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In the early eighteenth century, the Duchess of Queensberry arrived at the Bath Assembly wearing a white apron, only to have it torn from her person by a Master of Ceremonies who declared that only a lady's maid would appear dressed so. This article looks at the apron as a garment worn by elite women in eighteenth-century England in order to consider some of the questions raised by this encounter. Aprons were closely linked with the labouring classes in contemporary representation, and elite women wearing them were therefore accused of imitating the dress and behaviours of their inferiors. While emulation from below has received due attention from scholars, this apparent imitation from above remains underexplored. Elite women certainly did masquerade as country girls at times; however, the apron as an item of elite dress was not as transformative as contemporaries feared. Instead, it became subject to expectations and conventions governed by the rhythms of elite everyday life. Though the Duchess of Queensberry became infamous, elite women wearing aprons were most likely to provoke censure when they defied these conventions.I have known him on a ball to strip even the duchess of Q---, and throw her apron at one of the hinder benches among the ladies women; observing, that none but Abigails appeared in white aprons. 1 Nash's actions may have given good cause for offence, as an 'Abigail' was another term for a lady's maid, but Goldsmith assures us that the 'good natured duchess acquiesced in his censure, and with great good sense, and good humour, begged his

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Section: The Apron In Everyday Elite Lifementioning

confidence: 99%

‘None but Abigails appeared in white aprons’: The Apron as an Elite Garment in Eighteenth-Century England

Spencer¹

2018

Textile History

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Novel Relations

Perry¹

2004

135

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Ruth Perry describes the transformation of the English family as a function of several major social changes taking place in the eighteenth century including the development of a market economy and waged labor, enclosure and the redistribution of land, urbanization, the 'rise' of the middle class, and the development of print culture. In particular, Perry traces the shift from a kinship orientation based on blood relations to a kinship axis constituted by conjugal ties as it is revealed in popular literature of the second half of the eighteenth century. Perry focuses particularly on the effect these changes had on women's position in families. She uses social history, literary analysis and anthropological kinship theory to examine texts by Samuel Richardson, Charlotte Lennox, Henry MacKenzie, Frances Burney, Jane Austen, and many others. This important study by a leading eighteenth-century scholar will be of interest to social and literary historians.

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Perry¹

2004

Novel Relations

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"The Family Piece": Oliver Goldsmith and the Politics of the Everyday in Eighteenth-Century Domestic Portraiture

Cited by 17 publications

References 17 publications

‘None but Abigails appeared in white aprons’: The Apron as an Elite Garment in Eighteenth-Century England

‘None but Abigails appeared in white aprons’: The Apron as an Elite Garment in Eighteenth-Century England

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