#robert dighton

"February"

Geography Bewitched! or, a droll caricature map of England & Wales, Robert Dighton, 1795

It’s the 1780s

Top:  1780-1783 Anna Teofila Potocka by Marcello Bacciarelli (The Royal Łazienki Museum in Warsaw). From tumblr.com/blog/view/sims4rococo76/675282695253884928 2048X2689 @72 1.3Mj.

Second row left:  1780s Calendar art for February. From tumblr.com/blog/view/sims4rococo76/675282695253884928 750X1063 @72 321kj.

Second row right:  Calendar art for April. From tumblr.com/blog/view/antiquelaceartist 750X1063 @72 304kj.

Third row:  ca. 1785 Fashion Plate (September) by Robert Dighton (V&A). From tumblr.com/blog/view/silverfoxstole 1916X2500 @72 1.2Mj.

Fourth row:  ca. 1785 The Saithwaite Family by Francis Wheatley (Metropolitan Museum of Art). From their Web site 3790X3005 @150 2.9Mj.

Fifth row left:  1785 Maria J. Hoos by Nicolas Joseph Delin (Museum De Lakenhal - Leiden, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands). From tumblr.com/blog/view/andrayblue 2048X2256 @72 989kj.

Fifth row right:  ca. 1787 The Mockery by Louis-Léopold Boilly (Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art - Hartford, Connecticut, USA). From tumblr.com/blog/view/history-of-fashion 1273X1538 @72 626kj. Mildly cropped.

I do not wonder at my poor father's senses being dazzled, for, as he said to me, "You see, Jack, after being used to see nothing but Point women, all so slack in stays and their rigging out of order, to fall aboard of a craft like your mother, so trim and neat, ropes all taut, stays well set up, white hammock cloths spread every day in the week, and when under weigh, with a shawl streaming out like a silk ensign, and such a rakish gaff topsail bonnet, with pink pennants; why, it was for all the world as if I was keeping company with a tight little frigate after rolling down channel with a fleet of colliers: but howsomever, fine feathers don't make fine birds, and handsome is, as handsome does."

— Frederick Marryat, Poor Jack

It was quite possible for a good man pressed at sea to step straight into a petty officer's berth, or even straight onto the quarter deck. Pressed men rated midshipmen, or given warrants, were not unknown, and there was nothing to stop a pressed man rising as high in the Service as any other. The ship which manned a press tender generally kept the men she raised—if good, as an incentive, if bad, as a punishment. The good men were worth keeping, so it was worth rating a good man as highly as he deserved, lest he find means to go elsewhere. John Stevens, mate of the Neptune snow, was pressed in 1755 because of some ill-timed abuse of the press officer by her master. He petitioned either for his discharge, or to be allowed to serve in the Elizabeth whose captain offered to rate him midshipman.

— Nicholas A. M. Rodger, The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy