I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.
Emily Bronte
Wuthering Heights

zaterdag 19 februari 2022

Lace collar from Charlotte Bronte.


 Nick Holland @Nick_Holland_

Another Saturday treasure from the wonderful Bronte Parsonage Museum. This lace collar was worn by Charlotte Bronte and was made for her by her little sister Anne Bronte:

donderdag 17 februari 2022

POETRY performances are returning to a historic pub with a long literary legacy.

Monthly sessions are being held at the Black Bull in Haworth, where in the 1830s Branwell Bronte entertained travellers and guests with stories and poems. Keighleynews/poetry-sessions-return-historic-haworth-pub

An interesting article: How Tuberculosis Influenced Victorian Fashion

It was often called “consumption” because of how much weight those inflicted with tuberculosis lost. Another nickname was “the white plague” because of how pale people would become. And yet, its final nickname was “the romantic disease.” People became enamored with the physical effects of contracting the illness. Pale skin, thin waists, and flushed lips and cheeks from long-term fevers were seen as quite desirable. “Consumption, I am aware, is a flattering malady,” Charlotte Brontë wrote in a letter as she watched her sister fall ever sicker with the disease. Read more: everythinggp

Mystery of Brontë’s Mohawk moccasins.


Charlotte Brontë’s moccasins, as featured in ‘Defying Expectations: Inside Charlotte Brontë’s Wardrobe’.
Research has shown that they were made in the mid to late 1840s near Montreal, Canada.

Visit ‘Defying Expectations’ throughout the year at the Museum.

thetimes/mystery-of-brontes-mohawk-moccasins 

Sitting in the Brontë Parsonage museum archives are a pair of native American beaded leather moccasins. Donated in 1983 by a Brontë enthusiast, the shoes arrived accompanied by a note claiming that they had once belonged to Charlotte Brontë and curators have been puzzled by this ever since. How could they have made their way into the hands of a plain parson’s daughter from Victorian Yorkshire?

Strange article about the new Charlotte Bronte exhibition, her dresses.


The article is about this dress 
SR.5.7.Sym.1.42
Titlephotographs of dresses worn by Charlotte Bronte
Descriptionprinted page 22 showing two b/w images of a model wearing {103} pink frock and cape worn by Charlotte Bronte and {104} silk dress worn on her wedding tour by Charlotte Bronte [135mm l x 97mm w; fair;] [x 3 copies. (From the catalogue from the Bronte Parsonage)
.

This article is surprising me very much: 

theguardian/charlotte-bronte-clothing-exhibition-sensual-side-parsonage-museum

A new side of Charlotte Brontë, showing the author of Jane Eyre’s unexpected penchant for colourful, fashionable, even “sensual” clothing, is revealed in a new exhibition at the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

“My personal favourite is her pink wrapper, which is a really, really strange garment,” said Dr Eleanor Houghton, a historian, writer and illustrator who has co-curated the exhibition. “It was a sort of house coat with a matching cape. It’s hideous, pink, with little flowers on it, very bold, very bright and huge – very voluminous. It’s absolutely the opposite of anything you would ever associate with Charlotte Brontë.”

It’s a sensual garment, it’s something that she would have been seen in in the house, and with Nicholls. So while it’s not exactly a negligee, it’s sort of a Victorian equivalent. It’s an intimate garment,” said Houghton.

  • Really? Do we, Charlotte Bronte lovers, believe she could never have worn this?   This cosy, high-necked, covering everything dress, frock?
  • Do we believe Charlotte Bronte was some kind of a prude? The author of Jane Eyre?
I asked the opinion of a friend, who studies the Brontes, her reaction:

"The expert  quoted in the article seem to have an idea of Charlotte that she was some sort of austere, Quaker maid! Ha! Yes, CB cultivated that idea, but none should believe it. At heart she was a deeply sensual woman. 

Charlotte LOVED all the extra bows and ruffles!  Look at her wedding dress. She designed one frilly, extravagant, element after another. Charlotte was not plain in her dress once she had funds from her books.  Her forays into fashion were not always sure,  she still regularly called on her friend, Ellen Nussey, for advice, but they were determined. Particularly when she was visiting London, or on an important occasion, such as her marriage.

The article also portrays  this garment as something like a kinky sex outfit, when it's simply a dressing gown and one that covered her up completely!  People wore dressing gowns back then between their night gowns and  their day clothes.  I imagine Charlotte wore this gown at her dressing table  to brush her hair. etc.  

However, the 1927 catalogue calls this outfit a  "frock", that is a dress, with a cape.  So perhaps it was indeed a dress she wore during the day,( most likely in London, too dressy for Haworth! ) and so it is not a even dressing gown. Today our night dress and day clothes often look the same, like lounge wear, so it may be harder for us to tell! 

I would also point out Charlotte would add large, even extravagant, elements when designing her outfits, like the  balloon sleeves on the going away dress and extra padding on the outfit in question, to add bulk to her tiny figure."

dinsdag 15 februari 2022

Unravelling the Mystery: Charlotte Brontë’s 1850 ‘Thackeray Dress’, by Eleanor Houghton.


In the summer of 1850, there was a frisson of excitement in London society. Charlotte Brontë, the recently revealed writer of the best-selling novel Jane Eyre, was in the capital, staying with her publisher, George Smith. The highlight of Charlotte’s trip was a large, formal dinner hosted by her literary hero, William Makepeace Thackeray. To this august event it has long been assumed that she wore a floral print, white and blue delaine skirt and bodice. Read all: tandfonline/Thackeray Dress

 euppublishing/Unravelling the Mystery: Charlotte Brontë’s 1850 ‘Thackeray Dress’

maandag 14 februari 2022

INSIDE CHARLOTTE BRONTE'S WARDROBE.


This brand new exhibition,  co-curated with historical consultant Dr Eleanor Houghton, places focus on some of the remarkable garments and accessories worn by Charlotte Brontë. These brightly coloured, fashionable, even exotic items boldly challenge the preconception that Brontë and her famous protagonist Jane Eyre  were, at least in terms of dress, one and the same. The clothes draw attention to both Charlotte’s ordinary and extraordinary lives but also remind us that she was an active participant of the fast-changing mid-nineteenth century.

At the heart of ‘Defying Expectations’ is a striped evening dress, which has never been exhibited before. The dress was proved to be Charlotte’s during an extensive period of research conducted over the last six years by Dr Eleanor Houghton, the first scholar ever to have studied the clothing in the Brontë Society's collection  in detail. 

The exhibition features more than twenty pieces of Charlotte’s clothing and accessories, and offers an intimate insight into both her domestic and literary lives. Bronte Parsonage/whats-on/1169/defying-expectations-inside-charlotte-brontes-wardrobe,

The Parlour

The Parlour

Parsonage

Parsonage

Charlotte Bronte

Presently the door opened, and in came a superannuated mastiff, followed by an old gentleman very like Miss Bronte, who shook hands with us, and then went to call his daughter. A long interval, during which we coaxed the old dog, and looked at a picture of Miss Bronte, by Richmond, the solitary ornament of the room, looking strangely out of place on the bare walls, and at the books on the little shelves, most of them evidently the gift of the authors since Miss Bronte's celebrity. Presently she came in, and welcomed us very kindly, and took me upstairs to take off my bonnet, and herself brought me water and towels. The uncarpeted stone stairs and floors, the old drawers propped on wood, were all scrupulously clean and neat. When we went into the parlour again, we began talking very comfortably, when the door opened and Mr. Bronte looked in; seeing his daughter there, I suppose he thought it was all right, and he retreated to his study on the opposite side of the passage; presently emerging again to bring W---- a country newspaper. This was his last appearance till we went. Miss Bronte spoke with the greatest warmth of Miss Martineau, and of the good she had gained from her. Well! we talked about various things; the character of the people, - about her solitude, etc., till she left the room to help about dinner, I suppose, for she did not return for an age. The old dog had vanished; a fat curly-haired dog honoured us with his company for some time, but finally manifested a wish to get out, so we were left alone. At last she returned, followed by the maid and dinner, which made us all more comfortable; and we had some very pleasant conversation, in the midst of which time passed quicker than we supposed, for at last W---- found that it was half-past three, and we had fourteen or fifteen miles before us. So we hurried off, having obtained from her a promise to pay us a visit in the spring... ------------------- "She cannot see well, and does little beside knitting. The way she weakened her eyesight was this: When she was sixteen or seventeen, she wanted much to draw; and she copied nimini-pimini copper-plate engravings out of annuals, ('stippling,' don't the artists call it?) every little point put in, till at the end of six months she had produced an exquisitely faithful copy of the engraving. She wanted to learn to express her ideas by drawing. After she had tried to draw stories, and not succeeded, she took the better mode of writing; but in so small a hand, that it is almost impossible to decipher what she wrote at this time.

I asked her whether she had ever taken opium, as the description given of its effects in Villette was so exactly like what I had experienced, - vivid and exaggerated presence of objects, of which the outlines were indistinct, or lost in golden mist, etc. She replied, that she had never, to her knowledge, taken a grain of it in any shape, but that she had followed the process she always adopted when she had to describe anything which had not fallen within her own experience; she had thought intently on it for many and many a night before falling to sleep, - wondering what it was like, or how it would be, - till at length, sometimes after the progress of her story had been arrested at this one point for weeks, she wakened up in the morning with all clear before her, as if she had in reality gone through the experience, and then could describe it, word for word, as it had happened. I cannot account for this psychologically; I only am sure that it was so, because she said it. ----------------------She thought much of her duty, and had loftier and clearer notions of it than most people, and held fast to them with more success. It was done, it seems to me, with much more difficulty than people have of stronger nerves, and better fortunes. All her life was but labour and pain; and she never threw down the burden for the sake of present pleasure. I don't know what use you can make of all I have said. I have written it with the strong desire to obtain appreciation for her. Yet, what does it matter? She herself appealed to the world's judgement for her use of some of the faculties she had, - not the best, - but still the only ones she could turn to strangers' benefit. They heartily, greedily enjoyed the fruits of her labours, and then found out she was much to be blamed for possessing such faculties. Why ask for a judgement on her from such a world?" elizabeth gaskell/charlotte bronte



Poem: No coward soul is mine

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the worlds storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heavens glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.


O God within my breast.
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life -- that in me has rest,
As I -- Undying Life -- have power in Thee!


Vain are the thousand creeds
That move mens hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,


To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thine infinity;
So surely anchored on
The steadfast Rock of immortality.


With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.


Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.


There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou -- Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.


--
Emily Bronte

Family tree

The Bronte Family

Grandparents - paternal
Hugh Brunty was born 1755 and died circa 1808. He married Eleanor McClory, known as Alice in 1776.

Grandparents - maternal
Thomas Branwell (born 1746 died 5th April 1808) was married in 1768 to Anne Carne (baptised 27th April 1744 and died 19th December 1809).

Parents
Father was Patrick Bronte, the eldest of 10 children born to Hugh Brunty and Eleanor (Alice) McClory. He was born 17th March 1777 and died on 7th June 1861. Mother was Maria Branwell, who was born on 15th April 1783 and died on 15th September 1821.

Maria had a sister, Elizabeth who was known as Aunt Branwell. She was born in 1776 and died on 29th October 1842.

Patrick Bronte married Maria Branwell on 29th December 1812.

The Bronte Children
Patrick and Maria Bronte had six children.
The first child was Maria, who was born in 1814 and died on 6th June 1825.
The second daughter, Elizabeth was born on 8th February 1815 and died shortly after Maria on 15th June 1825. Charlotte was the third daughter, born on 21st April 1816.

Charlotte married Arthur Bell Nicholls (born 1818) on 29th June 1854. Charlotte died on 31st March 1855. Arthur lived until 2nd December 1906.

The first and only son born to Patrick and Maria was Patrick Branwell, who was born on 26th June 1817 and died on 24th September 1848.

Emily Jane, the fourth daughter was born on 30th July 1818 and died on 19th December 1848.

The sixth and last child was Anne, born on 17th January 1820 who died on 28th May 1849.

Top Withens in the snow.

Top Withens in the snow.

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