Vizards and Masks

Vizards, also known as masks, were worn by gentlewomen in the sixteenth through the seventeenth and possibly into the eighteenth centuries. They could also sometimes be worn by men, as in a quote from a translation of Stefano Guazzo’s work, “There are certaine glorious fellowes, who at shrovetide goe with Maskes on their face”, (1) and nearly a century later Stanley wrote, “Some wild young men.., lay in wait for him, attired like furies, with vizards and torches.” (2) The terms seem to be used fairly interchangeably. Stubbes uses both terms “When they [ladies] ride abroad, they have invisories, or masks, visors made of velvet, wherewith they cover all their faces.” (3)

Figure 1. Detail from Hollar showing how a half mask is fastened

Uses

In the sixteenth century, in England, they are used a lot in plays and revels; Elizabeth I even had her own vizard maker, John Owgle, and payment is made for example for a “dozen of viserdes with shorte berdes.” (4) One of their main uses seems to have been to preserve the complexion from sun or wind.  Holme describes a mask as “a thing that in former times gentlewomen used to put over their faces when they travel to keep them from sun burning.” (5) They became fashionable wear, both as a protection and simply to hide the face. Their use by criminal elements is shown in a 1657 record where, William Pearce taylor and John Kent barber where taken by the watch “in the company of others as daungerous and suspitious persons”, they having “having severall disguises about them as vizors, perriwigs and some kinde of womens apparell .” (6) Their use was of course, associated by many with vanity, as can be seen in a detail from the Maerten de Vos, print of c.1600 ‘The Vanity of Women: Masks and Bustles’ (Figure 2) 

Figure 2. Detail from Maerten de Vos "The Vanity of Women" Metropolitan Museum, New York

Styles of vizard.

Vizards or masks come in two types one that covers the full face, and a half mask covering just the eyes and nose. When masks are purchased, the style is often not indicated. Half masks were fastened with ties around the back of the head, and sometimes over the top, as can be clearly seen in the detail of a Hollar plate from Ornatus (Figure 1). A full face vizard which survives was found during the renovation of a stone building in Northamptonshire (Figure 3). It weighs about an ounce (30 grams), the outer fabric is black velvet, the lining is silk, and in between is pressed-paper, the three layers then being stitched together.  It fits perfectly with the description written by Randle Holme (1627-1699), ‘[It] covers the whole face [...] holes for the eyes, a case for the nose and a slit for the mouth [...] this kind of Mask is taken off and put[on] in a moment of time, being only held in the Teeth by means of a round bead fastened on the inside [...] against the mouth.’ (5) Another survival from the end of the seventeenth century is the miniature mask made for the doll, Lady Clapham, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The inner surface of this is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 3. Surviving mask found in Northamptonshire

The costs and who purchases them

The accounts for the Marquis of Hertford’s family in 1641 have ‘for three maskes for the three ladies 4s 6d,’ which would make them 1s 6d each. (7) Slightly cheaper examples were available, the Howards of Naworth purchased several between 1619 and 1624, in both velvet and satin, for prices between fourteen and twenty two pence. (8)

It would seem that this was an accessory that was adopted by the emerging middle classes, as several tradesmen have them in stock. John Uttinge, a chapman of Great Yarmouth, had six silk masks valued at 2s 6d in 1628, another chapman William Mackerell of Newcastle had four masks valued at 2s 4d in 1642. (9) In the 1660s both Ralph Eyton, a clothier of Bristol and Benjamin Marshall, a mercer of Lincoln, had masks in stock, while the 1679 probate inventory of Henry Mitchell, a haberdasher of Lincoln, recorded vizards in stock at 1s each. (10) (11)

When in 1669 Giles Moore, rector of a Sussex parish, took his niece, who was probably around 14 years old, to London with him, the purchased a considerable amount of clothing for her including a mask. (12) They seem to have been worn fairly commonly in London. Pepys comments on them several times, noting that “Lady Mary Cromwell, who looks as well as I have known her, and well clad; but when the House began to fill she put on her vizard, and so kept it on all the play; which of late is become a great fashion among the ladies, which hides their whole face.” (13) He then goes out the same day and purchases one for his wife at the Exchange.

Figure 4. Interior of Lady Clapham mask, Victoria and Albert Museum

Colours

While the survival and most images seem to show black masks, they could come in several colours, Gosson has “the tallow-pale, the browning -bay, the swarthy-blacke, the grassie greene, the pudding-red, the dapple-graie,” (14) and the Coke family archives have green masks being purchased for the children. (15)

References

1. Guazzo, Stafano. The civil conversation, translated out of French by George Pettie. London : Richard Watkins, 1581.

2. Stanley, Thomas. History of Philosophy. London: : Mosley and Dring, 1655.

3. Stubbes, Philip. Anatomie of Abuses. London : Richard Jones, 1583. https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-anatomy-of-abuses-by-philip-stubbes-1583.

4. Feuillerat, Albert. Documents relating to the office of the revels in the time of Queen Elizabeth. Louvain : Uystpruyst, 1908.

5. Holme, Randle. The academy of armory. Chester : The Author, 1688.

6. Middlesex Sessions Rolls: 1657. In: Middlesex County Records: Volume 3, 1625-67. Originally published London: Middlesex County Record Society, 1888. . [Online] [Cited: 6 March 2021.] https://www.british-history.ac.uk/middx-county-records/vol3/pp256-268.

7. Private Purse Accounts of the Marquis of Hertford, Michaelmas 1641-2. Morgan, F. C. 1945, Antiquaries Journal, Vol. 25, pp. 12-42.

8. Selections from the household books of the Lord William Howard of Naworth castle. Ornsby, George. Durham : Publications of the Surtees Society, 1878, Vol. 68.

9. Spufford, Margaret. The great reclothing of rural England: petty chapman and their wares in the seventeenth century. London : Hambledon Press, 1984.

10. George, E. and George, S. Bristol probate inventories, Part 2: 1657-1689. Bristol : Bristol Records Society publication 57, 2005.

11. Johnston, J. A. Probate inventories of Lincoln citizens 1661-1714. Woodbridge : Boydell, for the Lincoln Record Society, 1991.

12. Tankard, Danae. Clothing in 17th century provincial England. London : Bloomsbury, 2020.

13. Pepys, Samuel. Diary, Friday 13th June 1663. [Online] [Cited: 5 March 2021.] https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1663/06/12/.

14. Gosson, Stephen. Pleasant Quippes For Upstart Newfangled Gentlewomen. London : s.n., 1595.

15. Cunnington, C. Willett and Cunnington, Phillis. Handbook of English costume in the 17th century. 3rd ed. London : Faber, 1972.

Hollar's ladies in winter clothing 1639-1649

Figure 1 - Pennington 609

Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) published a large number of costume prints in the middle of the seventeenth century; this looks at those that depict Englishwomen in winter clothing. The images examined are Pennington numbers 609, 613, 617, 1789, 1888, and 1999. Pennington (2002) wrote a full catalogue of Hollar’s engravings and assigned each print a number, the print histories of Hollar’s works are very complicated and some prints have several states, where for example the engravings have been reworked, I am not going to comment on the states of the prints. The link should take you to better images.

 Four of the prints are full length and two are half-length, all are known to have been drawn and printed between 1639 and 1649. I have sourced them in several ways, from my own collection, from Wikimedia Commons and from the Hollar Digital Archive, which I recommend as it has all of the Ornatus, Theatrum and Aula prints, but not Hollar’s Season.

Two items of clothing accessory appear in all of the prints, a hood, and a fur muff, a third a half face mask appears in all except the rear view, where obviously you can’t see her face. Three of the ladies have a fur around their neck, and a fourth has a fur on the table next to her.



Pennington 613

1.         Pennington 609. This is the full length Winter from Hollar’s Seasons, with the date 1643. She is  standing at the junction of Cheapside and Poultry in the City of London. (Hollar, 1979). The lines underneath her read,

“The cold, not cruelty makes her weare

In winter, furs and wild beasts haire

For a smoother skin at night,

Embraceth her with more delight.”

She is wearing a fur collar and muff, a chaperone hood with a second hood/coif underneath, and a half mask. It looks as though she is holding up two skirts, the shirt of her gown and a petticoat, and there is another petticoat with a lace trimming around the hem. Her shoes have high heels and she wears a shoe rose with them. I refer to the fur collar as a collar, but there were several different names in use, though it is sometimes difficult to ascertain what precisely is meant by a palatine, a tippet (Weiss, 1970) or a zibellini (Sherrill, 2006)



Figure 3 Pennington 617

 

2.         Pennington 613. This is the three quarter length Winter engraved in 1641. The lines underneath her read:

            “Thus against winter wee our selves doe arme

            and think you then the cold can doe us harme

            but though it bee to hard for this attire

            yet wee’ll orecome it not with sword but fire.”

She is wearing a hood and carrying a muff, her half mask and fur collar are on the shelf next to her. She is also wearing gloves, as can been seen by the wrinkles going up her wrist and the lines from her fingers. Gloves were ubiquitous and bought in large quantities, the accounts of the Marquis of Hertford for the year 1641-2 show gloves being bought for his teenage children six pairs at a time, more than 100 pairs of gloves were bought for the six children in the course of one year, at one point “five dozen and ten paire of gloves for the young ladies” were purchased at a cost of £2 9s 8d. (Morgan, 1945) These accounts also show hoods being bought for “the young ladies”, that is the three daughters of the Marquis, “paid for two black taffetie hoods for my ladie Francis 7 shillings”

 



Figure 4 Pennington 1789

3.         Pennington 617 is another three quarter length issued by Stent in 1644. (Globe, 1986) This lady wears the same four items as the previous two, a muff, hood, fur collar and half mask. A full face mask was discovered in 2010 and a full record for it can be found on the database of the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Half masks were tied on as can be seen in the Hollar engraving where the lady is not wearing a hood.

 

Figure 4a

4.         Pennington 1789, this full length is from Ornatus, and was drawn in 1639. She has the hood, muff and half mask, but she also has what looks to be a waist length cloak or shawl. Interestingly Cunnington (1972) describes this as an ample overcoat, but a closer inspection of the print shows that what they took to be a sleeve is a folded piece of cloth. A similar, but single layer, rectangle of cloth can be seen in another front view from Theatrum  see figure 4a

 

5.         Pennington 1884 is a rear view with the label Nobilis Mulier Anglica in Vestitu Hiemali (Noble English woman in winter dress), engraved in 1643. This gives a rare rear view of the hood, and she carries a muff, but does not have a fur collar.

 

Figure 5 - Pennington 1884

6.         Pennington 1999, another full length drawn in 1644 and labelled “The winter habit of ane English gentlewoman”. In both this and Pennington 617 and 1789 there appears to be a line drawn under the mouth, which might indicate that the ladies are wearing chin clouts or mufflers, piece of cloth worn over the chin and the neck, again these appear in the Hereford accounts. “Paid to Fraunces to buy chin cloathes for the young ladies 5s 2d.”

 

Figure 6 - Pennington 1999

Cunnington, C. W. and P. 1972. Handbook of English costume in the seventeenth century. 3rd ed. London : Faber, 1972.

Globe, Alexander. 1986. Peter Stent, London Printseller, Circa 1642-1665: Being a Catalogue Raisonné . Vancouver : University of British Columbia Press, 1986.

Hollar, Wenceslaus. 1979. The four seasons, with an introduction by J. L. Nevinson and topographical notes by Ann Saunders. London : The Costume Society, 1979.

Morgan, F. C. 1945. Private purse accounts of the Marquis of Hertford, Michaelmas 1641-2. Antiquaries Journal. 1945, Vol. 25, 12-42.

Pennington, Richard. 2002. A descriptive catalogue of the etched work of Wenceslaus Hollar. Cambridge : CUP , 2002.

Sherrill, Tawny. 2006. Fleas, fur and fashion: zibellini as luxury accessories of the Renaissance.  Medieval Clothing and Textiles. 2006, Vol. 2, 121-150.

Weiss, F. 1970. Bejewlled fur tippets and the palatine fashion. Costume. 1970, Vol. 4, 37-43.

Elizabethan Vizard Mask

For those who haven’t already seen it an Elizabethan Vizard mask was found in 2010 and recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme on their database where there are full details. These full face masks were kept in place by a button held in the mouth, which survives with this original. They were used through the 16^th, 17^th and into the 18^th century, more often later for masque and masquerade wear. They could be worn by men as well as women, as in the 1655 quote from Thomas Stanley “Some wild young men‥, lay in wait for him, attired like furies, with vizards and torches.”  Pepys (12^th June 1663) commented that his wife at the theatre “put on her vizard and so kept it on all the play.”

The mid 18^th century portrait in pastels of Louise Geneviève Le Blond, Madame Royer shows her holding a very similar mask.

A half mask could also be worn, held on as shown clearly in this c.1640 print by Hollar.