El Cuarto de Maravillas

Hello! A wrapping gown sounds like an excellent choice for a first historical project! I haven’t made one yet, but it’s on my list. 

The only wrapping gown pattern I’ve come across is this one, which appears to have been scanned from a book, though I don’t know which book. It’s dated 1688-1695, but wrapping gowns change so very little that it’s basically the same cut as later ones.

The piecing shown on this pattern is likely because historical fabric widths were narrower, so with modern fabrics you’ll probably be able to fit it all in one width with either no piecing, or just a tiny bit of piecing on the sleeves if the fabric is on the narrower side and/or your arms are long.

It looks pretty simple. Front, back, and sleeves cut all in one piece, and you’d just need to sew up the side seams. That extra strip is either a facing or an extension of some sort. The dotted lines would seem to indicate an extension, but I haven’t seen anything like that on any of the extant ones, and the stripes in the illustration also indicate that there’s nothing extra sewn on, so I’m leaning towards it being a facing.

Here’s the accompanying illustration.

As you can see in many different photos of extant wrapping gowns laid flat, they have exactly the same shape as the above pattern folded in half.

c. First quarter of the 18th century, The Met.

Mid 18th century, The Met.

Some have narrower sleeves and some have wider sleeves. Turned back cuffs seem to be pretty popular, and this looks especially nice if the robe is fully lined in a contrasting colour.

c. 1690-1720, V&A.

They look so different on a figure compared to lying flat, wow!

A lot of these definitely have a small collar added, but there’s no visible break in the print from the front, so as far as I can tell it’s stuck in the back like this:

I hope this crappy diagram makes sense. That’s meant to be the cut for the long front opening, but with a T shaped cut at the top instead of the scooped out one in the pattern. I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going on, but I’ll be able to say more precisely what shape it is when I get around to making my own, whenever that happens. 

Here’s a nice shot of a somewhat contrasting lining. c. 1715-25, Winterthur. 

Ooh and there’s a buttonhole in one of the closeup photos, how interesting! I hope I can find some construction information on these, because I don’t know what order the bits ought to be sewn in, or what stitches were used. I’ll go digging for that later though.

And here’s a nice one with stripes, which show very clearly that the front opening of this was cut straight up the middle. c. Second half of 18th century, MFA Boston.

If you have pinterest, do take a look at my board of banyans, wrappers, etc! It’s got a lot of other leisure wear pins, but I think about a hundred of them are wrapping gowns.

And if anyone is looking for banyan patterns (which are much more fitted, and cut more like coats) there’s one available on LACMA’s website here, and a similar one on page 83 of The Cut of Men’s Clothes, here.

The Brahma, a popular giant known for its massive meat production and comically large eggs.

The cochin, seen here with gold and black 'lace' pattern

The barred plymouth, an incredible forager for lightly wooded terrain

The fayoumi, often regarded as The Oldest Breed of chicken

The wyandotte, a particularly good forager as well as a bulky, meaty bird.

The Minorca, a Spanish bird with stunning black feathers

And of course, the famous indonesian ayam cemani, which has black meat and bones

These eyeglasses are also known by the name Astaneh-e ferdaws, meaning "Gate of Paradise," based on the symbolic associations between the color green and the concept of spiritual salvation or "paradise." Those associations, which are rooted in Islamic tradition, were especially common in Mughal India.

The lenses were crafted from two thin slices of the same emerald. Together, the lenses have a combined weight of about 27 carats, but given the precision, size, and shape of each lens, experts believe that the original emerald likely weighed in excess of 300 carats (more than sixty grams) before it was cleaved down in order to produce the lenses.

The emerald was found at a mine in Muzo, Colombia, and it was then transported across the Atlantic by Spanish or Portuguese merchants.

Each lens is encircled by rose-cut diamonds, which run along an ornate frame made of gold and silver. This diamond-studded frame was installed during the late 1800s, when modern stylistic elements were incorporated into the original pince-nez design.

The "Gate of Paradise" spectacles are often accompanied by a second pair of eyeglasses that were created during the same period, and they were almost certainly commissioned by the same person; these other spectacles are known by the name Halqeh-e nur, meaning "Halo of Light," and they feature lenses that were cleaved from a single diamond.

It's estimated that the original, uncut diamond weighed about 200-300 carats, which would make it one of the largest uncut diamonds ever discovered.

The lenses are so clear and so flat that they sometimes seem almost invisible.

Both sets of spectacles date back to the mid-1600s, and it's believed that they were commissioned by a Mughal emperor or prince. The identity of that person is still a bit of a mystery, but it has been widely speculated that the patron was Shah Jahan -- the Mughal ruler who famously commissioned the Taj Mahal after the death of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Shah Jahan ruled as the Mughal emperor from about 1628 to 1658.

The emerald and diamond lenses may have been chosen for symbolic, sentimental, or cultural reasons, or they may have been chosen simply because they're pretty and extravagant; the original purpose and significance is still unclear, but there is evidence to suggest that they were actually designed to be worn by someone.

It has often been said that these spectacles possess mystical properties, including the ability to promote healing, to ward off evil, to impart wisdom, and/or to bring the wearer closer to enlightenment. Those beliefs mostly stem from Indic and Islamic traditions that ascribe spiritual qualities to both emeralds and diamonds. Emeralds are often associated with spiritual salvation, healing, cleansing, and eternal life, while diamonds are associated with enlightenment, wisdom, celestial light, and mysticism.

The "Gate of Paradise" and the "Halo of Light" spectacles were both kept in the collections of a wealthy Indian family until 1980, when they were sold to private collectors, and they were then put up for auction once again in 2021. They were most recently valued at about $2 million to $3.4 million per pair.

Sources & More Info:

Sotheby's: Mughal Spectacles

Architectural Digest of India: At Sotheby's auction, Mughal-era eyeglasses made of diamond and emerald create a stir

Only Natural Diamonds: Auspicious Sight & the Halqeh-e Nur Spectacles

The Royal Society Publishing: Cleaving the Halqeh-Ye Nur Diamonds

Gemological Institution of America: Two Antique Mughal Spectacles with Gemstone Lenses

Manuscript: From Satan's Crown to the Holy Grail: emeralds in myth, magic, and history

CNN: The $3.5 million Spectacles Said to Ward off Evil

(Prepare yourselves because Lincoln lore is kinda my jam.)

John Wilkes Booth is the more (in)famous brother now, but back then his older brother, Edwin, was America’s (& Europe’s) darling.

They were from the famous Booth acting family, who were essentially the Barrymore’s of the mid-1800s. Classically trained, truly gifted kinda people.

The whole family, save John, was pro-Union. They were from Maryland FFS. There was no reason for John to be Confederate at all, but I digress.

John was known as a notorious scene stealer who pulled focus in everything he did, but audiences found him so charming that people kept hiring him anyway. He even starred in a few plays with his brother.

Edwin wasn’t just good at acting, though. He was good at life, too. Think Chris Evans levels of goodness.

Once, while standing at a train station, he saw a small child fall off the platform & on to the tracks. He immediately leapt into action! Risking his own life by jumping in front of an oncoming train, & heroically saved the little boy just in the nick of time, returning him to his hysterical mother to great applause.

That boy? ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S SON, ROBERT.

Yeah. That’s right. The brother of Lincoln’s assassin saved his son years before the crime took place. Small fucking world, right?? & He didn’t even know it was them until he received a letter of thanks a few months later.

Just a stand up fucking dude all the way around.

Now, in the aftermath of said crime, Edwin felt a great & terrible shame over his brother’s actions and actually retired from the stage & public life altogether, moving to London & becoming destitute in the process.

He felt their family no longer deserved the love & praise Americans had always poured over them when one of their own had betrayed the nation in such a terrible way.

Eventually though, a grief-striken people cried out for his return. Thousands of letters poured in from both here & abroad, begging the man to return to acting & bring joy back to us. Even Mrs. Lincoln wrote him & granted him and the family forgiveness. (Her own kin had been Confederates, to her great embarrassment, so she understood how he felt.)

After a few years, Edwin Booth did indeed return to the stage to great acclaim. He continued acting until a stroke a few years before his death in 1893 & even founded the Boone Theater in Manhattan, which was quite popular until it was destroyed by a fire.

He is still considered by many theater historians to be the greatest American Shakespearean actor of all time.

Edwin Booth. American actor. American hero.

Their attack, which took place on 27 March 1943, was partially successful, and they managed to destroy 800,000 identity cards, and retrieve 600 blank cards and 50,000 guilders. The building was blown up and no one was caught on the night of the attack. However, due to an unknown betrayer, Arondéus was arrested on 1 April 1943. Arondéus refused to give up the rest of his team.

Arondéus was openly gay before the war and defiantly asserted his sexuality before his execution. His final words were:

"Tell the people that homosexuals are not by definition weak."

This confirms that there is a civilization older than the Sumerians that we have yet to find

Some people get existential dread from this

Source (non Aboriginal)

And a quote I picked out from a longer interview with an Aboriginal local elder about the area where he touched on the history

The Chauvet cave, France, the art of prehistory.

In 1994, three friends discovered in the south of France a cave with magnificent cave paintings, more than 30,000 years old.

Under the ground of the Ardèche region, an invaluable treasure is hidden for its antiquity, its conservation and the pictorial quality of the representations; one of the oldest and most splendid examples of Arieñaciense parietal art, dating approx. between 40,000 and 30,000 B.C.

An 18th century CE ivory dildo complete with contrivance for simulating ejaculation and its own discreet cloth bag. The didlo was hidden in the seat of a Louis XV armchair found in a convent near Paris. Now housed at the Science Museum in London

Meanwhile, corn (maize) is a crop native to the Americas. It features in the white cultural imagination in a very different way. Corn is a motif seen not in our ancestral myths, but in a much newer genre: the American Gothic. With its focus on the tensions between man and nature and—perhaps more importantly—the United States’s history of genocide against its indigenous population and trade in enslaved Africans, the American Gothic is VERY preoccupied with agriculture. Our monsters come out of corn fields because corn is a symbol for not only what we did to the Native Americans (who were the first to grow the crop), but of what we are doing to the very land itself. Corn is a monument to our cultural sins.

Meanwhile, I suspect that corn features very differently in the imaginations of people of color. If you asked a Native American person or a Latinx person what sort of mysticism they associate with corn fields, I imagine their answer would be very different than ours.

However.

My latest comic for The Nib was written by my friend Mike Thompson- it’s his first published comics work! 

The Nib has been a steady source of income and a huge support to me and many other indie cartoonists for years. They publish amazing work, but will be cut loose by their financial backer in July. You can read the official post about it from editor Matt Bors here.  They are still running their kickstarter-funded print magazine, but have to put digital publishing on hiatus until they figure out their next steps. If you’ve been thinking about supporting their membership program, now would be a good time. They have levels from $2 to $40 per month. I really don’t want this to be my last Nib piece! 

There is so much amazing about this. It's an archeological museum in 530 BCE or so. Also, the exhibits are labeled in three languages. Also they apparently had replicas on display for some things, much like modern museums do.

@takemetoturch

LOOK AT THIS MAGNIFICENT GOTH-ASS SHIT

EGADDDDDDD

THE IRON-COPPER SOLUTION USED TO DYE THE PAGES WAS SO CORROSIVE THAT THERE ARE VERY FEW SURVIVING EXAMPLES

THESE BOOKS WERE LITERALLY TOO METAL TO LIVE