Memento Mori

So, in addition to jewelry made from hair, Victorians memorialized their loved ones by having daguerrotypes made of them. According to a contributor to Daily Oddities, "This was especially common with infants and young children; Victorian era childhood mortality rates were extremely high, and a post-mortem photograph might be the only image of the child the family ever had. ... The earliest post-mortem photographs are usually close-ups of the face of shots of the full body and rarely include the coffin. The subject is usually depicted so as to seem in a deep sleep, or else arranged to appear more lifelike. Children were often shown in repose on a couch or in a crib," often joined by a favorite toy or family member. Sometimes the subject's eyes were propped open or pupils were painted onto their eyelids. Later European examples popularly featured "the deceased in a coffin with a large group of funeral attendees.

Aubrey Beardsley

Born in 1872, Aubrey Beardsley was an English illustrator and author who contributed to the Aesthetic and Art Nouveau movements. After completing grammar school, Beardsley worked at an architect's office and insurance company for a time before attending the Westminster School of Art in 1892. He later co-founded The Yellow Book, an influential illustrated quarterly. Many of his illustrations were grotesque and erotic. Though he was a great friend of Oscar Wilde, Beardsley was generally regarded as asexual and was completely devoted to his work. Due to chronic lung hemorrhaging, he was often unable to leave his home. A year before his death, Beardsley converted to Catholicism and begged his publisher to destroy his more obscene drawings, to which Leonard Smithers refused. Beardsley died of tuberculosis in 1898.

Folies Bergeres and Ziegfeld Follies

The music hall known as the Folies Bergere was established in 1869 Paris and still operates today. The height of its popularity lasted from the 1890s through the 1920s. It originally opened as an opera house, but switched gears and started catering to popular tastes in 1872. Shows included scantily clad girls and played up Parisian fascination with exoticism and negritude.





Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway that ran from 1907 through 1931. Conceived by Florenz Ziegfeld, the Follies were revues inspired by Paris's Folies Bergere. Entertainers like Josephine Baker and and Fanny Brice appeared in the shows. Costumes for the famous Ziegfeld chorus girls were made by such designers as Erte and Lady Duff Gordon.







For more Ziegfeld Follies costume, click here.

Gilded Age Mansion No.1

I plan to do a series of brief posts on various mansions from the Gilded Age in America. This first entry is on the mansion of Payne Whitney, which is now home to the French Cultural Service Offices in New York City. The house, located on 972 Fifth Street, was completed in 1906 as a wedding gift from Whitney's uncle Colonel Oliver Payne. Stanford White began work on the Italian Renaissance palazzo-style house in 1903.



Before Whitney's wife Helen Hay died in 1944, she had her favorite room, the Venetian Room, removed and preserved. In 1987, the mansion was restored and a stained-glass window designed by John La Farge was uncovered. Today, the Payne Whitney House is designated as a New York historical landmark.



The Venetian Room, featured in the movie Rebecca.



The La Farge window.

Read the full story of the Payne Whitney House here.

Victorian and Edwardian Wedding

Hair and Hats

I simply couldn't say this any better. The following text is borrowed from Eras of Elegance:


During the Victorian era, having one's hair styled by a hairdresser became popular. French hairstyles that were parted in the middle became trendy, while adorning one's head with flowers also gained stead. Austrian empress Elizabeth was the first to place flowers in her hair, and she soon started a widespread trend. "Barley curls" or "sugar curls" were long drop curls worn by children throughout the century. In the early 1840's, women took to wearing these curls alongside a coiled chignon, which was situated at the back of the head. Women continued to wear hats during this era. Fine milliners created fanciful styles decorated with plumes and ribbons. During the 1870s, the hair at the back of the head was occasionally allowed to hang loose, long and full, a lovely natural look that was featured in many pre-Raphaelite portraits. Sometimes the hair was seen in ringlets, and sometimes in large loops. In 1872, an important invention in hairstyling was invented: crimping. Crimping allowed for a "turned up hairstyle" in which the hair was pulled over a hot iron, resulting in an attractive wave. The "Marcel wave" was a new style created by the hot iron, and consisted of loose waves arranged around the head. By the end of the 1880s, pompadours were worn. This was a style in which the hair was swept up high from the forehead. Often, fake hair pieces were used to add height and depth. In addition, the "titus" hairstyle became popular from the 1880s. This hairstyle involved cutting the hair very close around the head. The hair was then curled, and styled with various ornaments including flowers. By the "Gay Nineties", high hairstyles had almost disappeared from the landscape of fashion trends. The look of the "Gibson Girl" was much more natural. A bun swept loosely on the head became the crowning feature of young Victorian girls. The "psyche knot" was especially prominent. This was basically hair pulled back from the forehead and knotted on the top of the head. Small coiffures, pompadours, and French twists were also worn, along with hair ornaments.


To see examples of hairstyles and hat fashions from the Victorian and Edwardian eras, click the picture below:

The Grand Duchess Anastasia

My first exposure to the story of Anastasia was via a traveling Romanov exhibition. Then, when the Dreamworks animated movie came out in 1997, I was officially obsessed. The film speculates what would have happened had Anastasia survived her family's assassination. It is the dream of every little girl that she is secretly a princess, so you can see why it was a success in the box office.

Velikaya Knyazhna Anastasiya Nikolayevna Romanova was born in 1901 to Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra. Anastasia appropriately means "breaker of chains" or "prison opener," as, in in honor of her birth, her father pardoned imprisoned students who had participated in St. Petersburg and Moscow riots in the previous year. The designation of Grand Duchess of Grand Princess indicated that Anastasia was higher in rank than other European princesses. Anastasia had strawberry-blonde hair and blue eyes.



Anastasia knitting in her mother's bedroom.

She and her siblings were raised with a spartan hand; they slept on hard cots, cleaned their own rooms, and took cold baths. She was perhaps the naughtiest of the Romanov children but those closest to her also described her as vivacious and witty. Anastasia and her older sister Maria were practically inseparable. They shared a room and also each other's clothing. Older sisters Olga and Tatiana were similarly attached. Though Anastasia did not suffer from Hemophilia B like her brother Alexei, the Romanov girls showed signs of reduced bloodclotting, and reportedly, Anastasia had a weak back muscle and... bunions.



c. 1914

In 1917, Nicholas abdicated the throne and, along with his family, was put under house arrest at the Alexander Palace. Eventually, they were relocated to the Ipatiev House (or House of Special Purpose) in Yekaterinburg. After a year of fearing their impending deaths, the Romanovs were executed by firing squad on July 17, 1918.



Reading next to her mother in the sitting room, c. 1916.

In the years following the deaths of the Romanov family, several women came forward to claim they were the Grand Duchess, most notably Anna Anderson, who was, by comparison of Prince Philip's DNA, proven to be an impostor. Any other rumors of Anastasia's survival were put to bed in 2007, when a Russian archaeologist announced the discovery of a burial site near Yekaterinburg. DNA testing confirmed that the remains found there were of Alexei and one of his sisters. After this discovery, all bodies of the Romanov children were accounted for and the myth of Anastasia's escape was put to bed.



Tatiana and Anastasia with their dog Ortino in 1917.




For more photos, visit the George Grantham Bain Collection, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, and Alexander Palace.