New Regency Era Basket Collection
In celebration of the Regency Era I have created a new collection of baskets for this year’s Jane Austen Festival Fayre in Bath (11th & 12th September at Bath Pavilion). From large oval picnic hampers to fine delicate baskets for parading with, each of these nine baskets has been meticulously researched for historical accuracy and recreated using rare and often advanced basketry techniques.
Working from paintings and prints of the era, from collections held in the USA and UK, I’ve searched for and studied the types of baskets used by costamongers and hawkers as well as those portrayed with the gentry. It’s incredibly rare to find an actual basket that can be determined as being of the Regency Era (1795 - 1837), after all we are talking 200 years and naturally degradable willow. For the purposes of my research I’ve extended this time frame to include from the 1770’s onwards, with my thinking being that traditional baskets being made in the mid 18th century onwards were most likely to have been still made a quarter of a century later.
During my research I have made some interesting observations and dispelled some long held inaccuracies. I can find no evidence yet, (but of course I will keep on looking), for the existence of rectangular hampers. The emergence in popularity of the regency picnic is portrayed in paintings and prints, but shown with oval, (sometimes lidded), picnic baskets being used. My reckoning is that the rectangular picnic hamper as we now know it is a Victorian invention.
The type of willow often used to portray Regency baskets is also historically inaccurate. Buff willow, (this is the honey / orange coloured willow seen on the vast majority of baskets), was invented in the 1860s in the East Midlands and not brought into commercial basket production until the 1870s. Buff willow didn’t exist in the Regency Era, white willow reigned supreme! White willow is still very highly prized today, made by stripping the bark off of each willow rod. This process happens in early summer and occurs after the willow rods have been harvested in winter and then stood in water, (this is called pitting out). When the sap begins to rise the bark becomes peelable just for a few weeks. This time consuming and costly method is still carried out on the Somerset Levels today by the three remaining commercial willow growers. The more I’ve researched the more I’ve come across alternative methods of making this beautiful white willow, which may explain how the quantities required in the Regency Era were achieved. That said, I’ve also been astonished by the sheer amount of willow grown across Europe and imported into the UK in the early 19th Century.
What has also surprised me is the quality and advanced craftsmanship behind what I’d refer to as everyday baskets, for example those used to sell wares or being used as shopping baskets. This is particularly evident on many basketry handles with the use of skein work. Long willow rods are split into 3 or 4 pieces lengthwise and then shaved into fine ribbons that are known as skeins. These skeins are then wrapped along the length of the handle in various patterns, (this is known as listing). Often quite elaborate, this is undertaken not only for decorative purposes but also to provide rigidity to the handle and connect the handle more securely to the basket. Today skein work is a rare, advanced basketry technique. It’s time consuming, needs lots of practice to achieve successfully and until fairly recently it was difficult to obtain the tools required. In creating my collection of Regency Era baskets I’ve really enjoyed putting my existing skein work expertise into practice, learning new decorative patterns and admiring the fact that during regency times people had very functional, practical baskets but often still wanted them to have decorative detailing.
During my research it became evident that those with a higher social status were more often depicted with openwork baskets, these not only could involve skein work but also the basketry weaving technique known as fitching. Fitching is used in bands on the sides of baskets to create gaps between the upright rods, enabling vertical or diagonal patterns to be created. This technique is not an easy weave to master, requiring strength, control and a lot of practice. Today in the UK we tend to associate fitching, skein work, techniques such as scalloming and openwork as being from Europe and rarely used in English basketry. However, the amount of basketry that I’ve found depicted in the Regency Era that show these techniques suggests to me that either there was a huge import market of baskets into the UK from northern Europe in the 18th and early 19th Centuries or in fact we were in this country making these openwork baskets too.
Evidence of this I believe also comes from the Company Arms of the Worshipful Company of Basketmakers. By 1780 it is recorded that this City of London Guild depicts three openwork ‘cross’ baskets on it’s Coat of Arms. Interestingly over the centuries, a couple of depictions of these three baskets on their Coats of Arms show the baskets with more closed randed side weaves, but the vast majority including up to the present day depict openwork. Why does all this matter? Surely the major representative guild for basketmakers would promote and depict London made baskets on it’s Coat of Arms? If I was an 18th century London basketmaker and found that the Guild that was meant to represent and protect my livelihood was portraying and promoting foreign baskets, well I’d be up in arms! Until it’s proven otherwise, I therefore believe that English basketmakers in the 18th and 19th Centuries were creating the openwork baskets that involved these advanced techniques and that were portrayed in paintings and prints of the Regency Era.
As I progress in my technical ability, skills and knowledge I will be adding new baskets to the Regency Era Basket Collection. Meanwhile my current collection is now available to purchase at my website shop by heading to https://www.sarahlebreton.co.uk/shop/regency-era-collection Please do take a look, let me know what you think and if you’ve come across any regency paintings or prints depicting baskets that you think will be of interest to me then please do get in contact!