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| Louise Moillon - Scène de marché avec pickpocket |
The 17th century equivalent of the modern carrier bag was the shopping basket in rush or wicker, in fact baskets have been described as “One of the most important containers in the early modern period both for storage and carriage”. (British History Online, 2015)
The OED describes a basket as being “A vessel of wickerwork, made of plaited osiers, cane,
rushes, bast, or other materials.” Bast is flax, hemp, jute and similar plant
fibres. Osiers or withies are specifically flexible willow twigs or branches.
Basket making was a fairly well represented craft, there were eight basket
makers listed in the 1608 muster list for Gloucestershire. (Tawney, 1934)
England did not produce a collection of genre paintings in
the way that many European countries did so we have little in the way of visual
evidence for what was used. Most people will be aware of the 1640 Hollar
engraving from the Ornatus Muliebris of the maid with her rush basket, others
will be aware of the various Cries of London series, showing women with baskets
on their heads. Here we have baskets for two different functions; the first is
for putting your shopping in, the other is for taking goods to market, or from
one place to another, the equivalent of the old costermonger basket.
The costermonger style appears in many European Cries as well
as the London ones. Possibly the oldest of the “Cries” are these Parisian ones
in the Bibliotheque
Nationale, which as the text says are gendered, in that the women are more
often shown carrying goods in a basket or pot on their head, while the men are
more often shown carrying goods on their backs. For a quick history of Cries
have a look at Shesgreen (2013)
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| Oyster seller |
There are several series of Cryes of London and, as
Shesgreen has said, each “is a synthesis of its precursors.” (1990) An early 17th
century series sold by Richard Newton includes 12 women in the set, half hold
things in their hands with no carrier, 4 have baskets over their arms (see the oyster seller left) and 2
carry baskets on their heads. The Manner of Crying Things
in London, sold by Peter Stent, shows no baskets over the arm, though one is
held under the arm, and one of the four women with a basket on her head has a
basket with a central handle implying it could be carried over the arm. Stent
opened his shop in 1642 and died in 1665, the Stent collection of prints was
sold to Overton by his widow. (Globe, 2008) (Clayton, 2008) In contrast to
the Stent Cries the c.1667 Common Cryes of London, printed by John Overton,
shows eighteen women, 8 carry baskets on
their heads, 9 carry baskets, or something similar, over their arms, and one
carries goods loose. A late set of cries by Marcellus Laroon are the most
naturalistic. These were published in 1687; six of the women in the series
carry baskets over their arms. In all these cases it is as well to remember
that they are not women shopping, they are women selling; however they show the
types of baskets available to the housewife, especially in the case of Laroon's basket seller, who not only has a load of different table baskets on her head, but also carries some straw hats, see below.
So that is what market criers and traders are using, but
what about the “housewife” doing her shopping. Hollar’s Theatrum Mulierum and
Aula Veneris would appear to indicate that carrying a basket is widespread in Western
Europe across a range of social levels, from the merchant’s
wife in Holland, the woman
of Antwerp, the country
woman in France to the servant
maid in Cologne, not to forget the English
kitchen maid from his Ornatus. There are two paintings by the French artist
Louise Moillon which show a range of baskets, top right you see her Scène de
marché avec pickpocket dating from the 1630s, the purchaser has a lidded
wicker basket over her arm, while the seller has a range of baskets containing
vegetables and fruits. Have a look
also at her La
marchande de fruits et de légumes
British
History Online, 2015. Dictionary of Traded Goods and Commodities, 1550-1820.
[Online]
Available at: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/traded-goods-dictionary/1550-1820/bashron-basting-ladle#h2-0006
[Accessed 19 May 2015].
Available at: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/traded-goods-dictionary/1550-1820/bashron-basting-ladle#h2-0006
[Accessed 19 May 2015].
Clayton, T.,
2008. Overton family (per. c.1665–c.1765)’, In: Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography, Oxford. [Online]
Available at: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/64998
[Accessed 21 May 2015].
Available at: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/64998
[Accessed 21 May 2015].
Globe, A.,
2008. Stent, Peter (b. in or before 1613, d. 1665). In: Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography. [Online]
Available at: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/50897
[Accessed 21 May 2015].
Available at: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/50897
[Accessed 21 May 2015].
Shesgreen, S.,
1990. The criers and hawkers of London, engravings and drawings by Marcellus
Laroon. Aldershot: Scholar Press.
Shesgreen, S.,
2013. Cries of London from the Renaissance to the seventeenth century. In: R.
Harms, J. Raymond & J. Salman, eds. Not Dead Things: The Dissemination
of Popular Print in England and Wales, Italy, and the Low Countries 1500-1820. Leiden:
Brill, pp. 117-152.
Tawney, R. H.,
1934. An occupational census of the seventeenth century. Economic History
Review, 5(1), pp. 25-64.
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