This must be a record. For the first time in living memory (or 1976) it is a hot and sunny August Bank Holiday in the UK. Maybe all the farmers can bring in the standing crops at last.
I - like a farmer - will be working tomorrow, as I currently have a pheasant with feet that look like a feral pigeon's on an urban diet of discarded KFC, and my clients return on Friday.
Yesterday, I bought the above. The dealer described it as 'a mystery thingumy' because he didn't know what it was. I did, so I got it for not a lot of money.
It is a small 'muller' for grinding makeup made from Bristol Blue Glass. I saw one recently, but cannot remember where I saw it.
In the 18th century, many women - or their maids if they were wealthy enough to have one - would make their own pan makeup. They would put the pigment onto a flat piece of glass or marble, add some animal fat and grind it into a fine paste with a little muller like this one. They would apply the white colour to their faces and highlight the cheeks with a little rouge. Any spots or unsightly blemishes were covered over with a little round patch of dyed-black mouse skin or felt. These were the days before tanning studios to make allowance for a wet Augusts.
The white powder for the pigment was lead oxide...
Death by makeup.
ReplyDeleteSlow death by makeup.
DeleteOoooo .... seeing that photograph quickly, I thought you had started working for Lovehoney !!!
ReplyDeleteLead in make up and VD was treated with mercury and then, William Morris put arsenic in his wallpaper ..... you didn't stand a chance !!! XXXX
Arsenic green is very beautiful. Lovehoney did offer me a position in their company, but my knees weren't up to it.
DeleteIt looks a beautiful blue.
ReplyDeleteYes, it is. First developed in Bristol in the early 18th century, I believe. Did you ever have Milk of Magnesia in the blue glass bottles?
DeleteYes!
DeleteI use a mixture of mud and sweat.
ReplyDeleteNo tears?
DeleteI had never before thought about what the little 'beauty marks' were made out off. Somebody had to manufacture these. How many 'beauty marks' can you make out of one dead mouse?
ReplyDeleteI'll get back to you about that.
DeleteI know! It requires contemplation, doesn't it?!
DeleteNot for the mouse.
DeleteWhen something was completely trashed/ruined we used the expression that it was mullered. Wonder if it came from this instrument? When you artists make your own paint and grind it down is it the same name for that kit?
ReplyDeleteThe Bristol blue glass M of M and didn't sherry get sold in it?
Yes. I had a muller made for me by a glass blower. Harvey's Bristol Cream is in a blue glass bottle.
DeleteI would have it on a windowsill, to admire the color in the sun. As a dealer in antiquities, I could have fathomed it's purpose of smashing, and looked into it further. Calling it a thingamabob is insulting.
ReplyDeleteNot to me it isn't. I saved quite a lot of money.
DeleteLove that cobalt blue, don't know s... about makeup.
ReplyDeleteNor me, apart from the history attached to it.
DeleteI shall most certainly not try that at home Tom/
ReplyDeleteAh don't worry. A bit of lead poisoning at our age will just spice things up.
DeleteGood evening Tom. After my own most recent long pause, I am visiting some of my favorite blog posts this evening...and hope to keep up the momentum to visit more tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteLots of signs around NYC that Summer's being shooed away, although this weekend's weather was grand. Folks in the Gulf area of Texas are not so thrilled with their weekend or the days to come.
Your blue glass muller is a beauty. Wishing that you were allowed to show us your woodland animals. I am sure that they are grand. Hope to be back here before Halloween. xo
50 inches of rain in Houston! Unimaginable. Will we recognise you when you come back at Halloween?
DeleteI spent my first Summer in the UK in 1976 so I remember vey well what an extraordinary spell of great weather you all had that year. I've had good weather karma in your isle ever since; I recently walked across Hadrian's Wall and didn't get rained on once.
ReplyDeleteI well remember the old Museum of London, of 30 years ago, when the place was not "interpreted" so heavily as it is now. The place was heaving with odd displays and glass cases crammed into small dark rooms, but what wonders were hidden within! My favorite was a display of wax face molds taken in the 18th century of Londoners exhibiting tertiary symptoms of syphilis (exploding noses, etc) alongside a display of 18th century make up. I saw eyebrows made of mouse skins and beauty patches of mole skins, to hide smallpox scars. It was horrifying and fascinating at the same time. Alas, those exhibits have disappeared in the new museum, probably because they'd be too upsetting for the delicate sensibilities of the 21st century. I'm glad I knew England in the '70s.