On Saturday I went to Hinton Ampner House where I saw two
lovely 1620s dummy boards of children. Dummy boards, also known as silent
companions or conservation pieces are life size painted wooden representations
of people. They were around mainly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
and they are good sources for costume information, though beware copies were
made in the nineteenth century and there are people who make reproductions nowadays
The two dummy boards depict a boy and a girl, and to me say about 1615-1625 and Dutch. The boy is unbreeched, wearing skirts but carrying a
wooden sword, and with a muckminder (large handkerchief) attached to his belt.
The girl has the very rigid style of coif that appears in many Dutch paintings
of the time, and would appear to require a wire frame, which the Dutch call an Oorijzer,
and I love the wicker basket.
I was aware of the dummy boards in the Victoria and Albert
Museum’s collection, particularly the two c.1620 boards which are probably a
pair, and possibly represent industry and vanity. The one representing industry
has appeared in several costume books where she is usually described as a maid.
She is not alone there are two almost identical dummy board figures of women
with brooms, in Lullingstone Castle and Stoneleigh Abbey. Although described as
a maid because she has a broom and an apron hitched to one side for working,
her clothing has been considered too rich for a servant. She wears a shadow or
cornet on her head, a falling ruff and turned back cuffs decorated with lace. These
are very similar in style, though nowhere near as ornate, as the ones worn by Margaret
Layton in the famous c.1620 painting of her wearing her embroidered jacket.
The companion piece, described as vanity,
has her hair down and a mirror in her hand. She wears a pearl necklace and
earrings, and the lace decorating her apron appears to match the lace on her
cuffs and on the collar of her very low neckline. The low neckline is of a
style often worn by James I’s wife Anne of Denmark as can be seen in a 1617
portrait in the National
Portrait Gallery. This dishabille style
also appears in the portrait of Elizabeth Vernon, Countess
of Southampton . The pairing of
industry and vanity, or similar, is common at this time, as in the title page of
the embroidery book The
Needles Excellency, where Wisdom (with a book), Industry(with her sewing)
and Follie, are shown side by side.
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