#18th c

[calendae-creations]

Historic pottery, currently available in my shop! My 17th/18th c mug collection is out of the shop currently for a gallery show over the holidays, but I have some oil lamps available, and a pipkin!

The wee lamps hold a single wick, and should be used on a saucer or something as there is no built in drip catcher.

The large one can hold up to three wicks at once to provide more light, and has a drip catcher and handle.

I offer hand braided wicks that optimize fuel use and light production, but in a pinch any scrap of natural fiber (not synthetics! they are plastic and will release toxic fumes and also melt!) fabric or yarn that you twist together will work, more or less.

Any plant or animal based oil can be used, including used cooking oil. Examples include olive oil, leftover fat from cooking meat, etc. DO NOT use petroleum products like kerosene or oils sold for more modern oil lamps, as it is very unsafe to do so in an open container like this.

Pipkins are a type of ceramic cookware common in Europe from the 13th through 18th centuries, intended for cooking over hot embers or coals on a hearth. My pipkins are not based on specific extant pieces unless otherwise specified, being instead based on the general characteristics commonly seen in historic pipkins. Further information is contained in my shop listing. For more modern uses, they make nice yarn bowls, and are good for watering house plants.

[blondebrainpowered]

Chatelaine with Watch. French, 18th century, gold, gilt metal, agate, rock crystal. Decorative chatelaines were worn by men and women as belt pendants and multifunctional devices for carrying utensils like watches, signet seals, and sewing accessories.

[fopsexual]

shoe buckles, late 18th century, the met (1 2)

[emotionsincascades]

Portrait de la Baronne de Crussol tenant un arrangement de Gluck, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, 1785.

[shakespearenews]

18th c. Shakespearean watch papers depicting actors as Richard III, Hamlet, Romeo, and Juliet. 

[oldschoolfrp]

Mood board / dungeon inspiration of the day: Giovanni Piranesi’s Carceri d’invenzione, Imaginary Prisons, fantasy landscapes of massive stone architecture dominated by columns and arches, stairs and bridges to nowhere, barred gates, and hanging ropes and chains (begun around 1745 and published as two versions in 1750 and 1761).  The original designs would be difficult to map, but it’s worth incorporating some of these elements to a dungeon encounter location.  To evoke this on a wargaming table I would omit the tall surrounding walls and build one or more central towers with stairs and balconies, placing some lower pieces around them.

[acrossthewavesoftime]

Francis Grose’s A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

In 1785, the lexicographer Francis Grose published a dictionary of slang terms and colloquialisms. Grose collected words and phrases specific to certain regions or groups of people as well as the vogue words of the day.

The result, speaking from the 21st century perspective, is threefold. Of course, this being the 18th century, there are a lot of words and phrases we would not choose to use to day for being offensive in one or the other way (or both), but it is also amazing to see how many expressions are still used today: hush money, cheek-by-jowl, numbskull, to catcall and chubby are words and expressions still in use today, to name but a few.

And lastly, prepare to be amazed by all the amazingly funny expressions no longer in use; some of them are just funny for their creativity, others astonishingly useful and descriptive.

I’ll share a few of my favourites and invite everyone to take a glance of their own by linking the digitised 1788-edition. Warnings for those wanting to take a glimpse at the full work, as hinted at, include NSFW, crass language and period typical attitudes of all kinds.

The list below the cut, in no particular order, will however be more about humourous and at times even useful expressions with the intention of mildly amusing and provoking a laugh in the Gentle Reader.

Everyone knows *that* person...

I have been becalmed the entire last week and didn’t know there was a word for it until today.

Hear ye me, gentlepersons, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou hast no class” is passé, we now have the Winter’s Day to compare wicked fellows to.

...does the Ungrateful Man drink Kill Devil?

One of these things like petrichor that you never knew you needed a word for, just a lot cuter.

Jingle brains, jingle brains, jingle all the waaay/ o what fun it is to be a drunk Georgian rake yay-hey!

I am quite lost for words, and interested in an explanation.

...Because who doesn’t regularly dance in their birthday suit in the company of other similarly attired persons?

Ok, another accurate one. It sure can feel like that when one’s finally tackling said chore after having ignored it for a while...

With this one you just know a 1780s dad was happy to have been given the opportunity to present his best play on words yet.

And last but not least, a contemporarily relevant one: who would have thought there was a word for super-spreading an illness at a (Christmas) gathering?

I hope you found this a touch amusing. Here’s the reference for the dictionary:

Grose, Francis: A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 2nd edition, S. Hooper, London 1788 [accessed 30 June 2021].

[flood1990]

Hecuba Blinding Polymestor by Giuseppe Maria Crespi (early 18th c.) // ‘Foreign Object’, The Mountain Goats