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Category Archives: Everyday life
Douce’s dream
In a previous post, I referred to Douce’s accounts of his dreams in his Book of Coincidences. In an undated entry probably written in 1817, Douce explained: I had a strange dream about eating a cross-bow as a broiled fish. … Continue reading
Interior design
The drawing below was made by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, an artist renown, among many other things, for getting his props right: Like other history painters working in the early decades of the nineteenth century, Ingres would have appreciated Douce’s … Continue reading
Posted in Antiquaries, Drawings, Everyday life, Fashion, Furniture, Networks, Paintings, Romanticism
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A peep at the balloon
On Saturday, 7 July 1810, the Oxford-born chemist James Sadler (1753-1828) took part in the celebrations of the installation of the new Chancellor of the University by ascending in a balloon from Merton fields with his fourteen-year-old son, Windham. The … Continue reading
Parlour game
Bonnets are everywhere due to the bicentenary of Pride and Prejudice*. This blog could not resist the temptation to join in, especially when the said article of apparel features so prominently in Douce’s folders of costumes, where the fashion plate … Continue reading
Posted in Colour, Costumes, Everyday life, Fashion, Games, Literature, Prints, Wood-engravings
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The cook’s oracle
In December 1826, Douce wrote to his friend George Cumberland: If you will write a book of cockery for your Bristoldians & other gormandizers, you will get as rich as Dr Kitchener, who told me that he has sold 20,000 … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Cookery, Everyday life, Feast, Literature, Networks, Physicians, Wood-engravings
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The Star of the Kings
A few months ago, I came across the image below while cataloguing a series of prints of the months from a late seventeenth-century almanac in Douce’s collection: The man pouring water from a vase next to a fountain in the … Continue reading
Posted in Almanacs, Carols, Engravings, Everyday life, Feast, Festivals, Prints, Seasons, Stipple, Zodiac
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The ruff-setter
In 1817, the April issue of The Critical Review carried an article on Philip Stubbes’s The Anatomie of Abuses (1583), in which Douce and his print Der Kragen Setzer are mentioned with regard to extravagant fashions and to the moral … Continue reading
Posted in Costumes, Engravings, Everyday life, Fashion, Prints, Satirical prints, Shakespeare
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“The Puck of Commentators”
One of Douce’s most assiduous correspondents in the 1790s was the Shakespeare scholar George Steevens (1736-1800), of whom the DNB says that “his wit and the associated learning [...] earned him the name of the Puck of Commentators”: From his … Continue reading
The limping messenger
Douce’s illustrations from almanacs date from about the last quarter of the eighteenth century to the early 1830s. As is often the case with the part of his collection that remains arranged by subject, the images are taken out of … Continue reading
Posted in Almanacs, Drawings, Everyday life, Popular prints, Wood-engravings, Woodcuts
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Douce’s Baked Apple Pudding
I have just finished cataloguing Douce’s folders of woodcuts, which contain quite a few illustrations from late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century German almanacs. The autumn months are often represented by apple-picking: In one of his commonplace books, Douce wrote down … Continue reading
Posted in Almanacs, Everyday life, Prints, Seasons, Uncategorized, Woodcuts, Zodiac
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