Summary
"This is a study of the skills and pastimes of upper-class women and the works they produced during a 200-year period. These activities included watercolours, printmaking and embroidery, shell work, rolled and cut paper work, sand painting, wax flower modelling, painting on fabrics and china, leather work, japanning, silhouettes, photography and many other activities, some familiar and others little known. The context for these activities sets the scene: the general position of women in society and the constraints on their lives, their virtues and values, marriage, domestic life and education. This background is amplified with chapters on other aspects of women's experience, such as sport, reading, music, dancing and card-playing"--Book jacket.
Contents
Introduction
1. A woman's lot
2. Educating a lady
3. Reading and literary pursuits
4. Cards, indoor games and theatricals
5. The sporting lady
6. Dancing and public entertainment
7. Music
8. Embroidery
9. Threads and ribbons
10. Beadwork
11. Shellwork
12. Nature into art
13. Paperwork
14. Drawing and painting
15. Creativity with paints and prints
16. Japanning
17. Penwork
18. Silhouettes
19. Photography and the Victorian lady
20. Sculpture, carving, turning and metalwork
21. Toys and trifles.