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Such a hat is also seen in the famous Gainsborough, Hon.
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In Isabelle de Charriere's 1782 Letters from Mistress Henley, Mistress Henley and her husband argue over her wearing such a hat to a ball. This image is from a French fashion journal c. The following fashion plates show suggested costumes for various masked events. "Regency" romance novels, which are typically about Britain's upper class "ton" during the 1800s, often make use of masquerade balls as settings, due both to their popularity at the time and to their endless supply of plot devices. Another ball in Zürich is featured in the novel Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse. Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Masque of the Red Death" is based at a masquerade ball in which a central figure turns out to be exactly what he is costumed as. The picturesque quality of the masquerade ball has made it a favorite topic or setting in literature. The idea of masks and costumes was particularly popular during Twelfth Night revels. This added a humorous effect to many masques and enabled a more enjoyable version of typical balls.
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This would create a type of game to see if a guest could determine each other's identities. The masked guests were supposedly dressed so as to be unidentifiable. Masquerade balls were sometimes set as a game among the guests. While they were sometimes able to persuade authorities to their views, enforcement of measures designed to end masquerades was at best desultory. The anti-masquerade writers (among them such notables as Samuel Richardson) held that the events encouraged immorality and "foreign influence". Its prominence did not go unchallenged a significant anti-masquerade movement grew alongside the balls themselves. Throughout the century the dances became popular, both in England and Colonial America. John James Heidegger, a Swiss count, is credited with having introduced the Venetian fashion of a semi-public masquerade ball, to which one might subscribe, to London in the early eighteenth century, with the first being held at Haymarket Opera House. Gustav III of Sweden was assassinated at a masquerade ball by disgruntled nobleman Jacob Johan Anckarström, an event which Eugène Scribe and Daniel Auber turned into the opera Gustave III. They became popular throughout mainland Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, sometimes with fatal results. With the fall of the Venetian Republic at the end of the 18th century, the use and tradition of masks gradually began to decline, until they disappeared altogether. They have been associated with the tradition of the Venetian Carnival. They were generally elaborate dances held for members of the upper classes, and were particularly popular in Venice. Masquerade balls were extended into costumed public festivities in Italy during the 16th century Renaissance. Such gatherings, festivities of Carnival, were paralleled from the 15th century by increasingly elaborate allegorical Entries, pageants and triumphal processions celebrating marriages and other dynastic events of late medieval court life. and I in beggars clothes to sing carols at the parlour door, and myself in a long scarlet cloak for a royal robe and a wreath of natural primroses (which we had gathered and made up in the morning for whoever would be queen) around my head.Ī masquerade ball (or bal masqué) is an event which the participants attend in costume wearing a mask. Soon After, according to a preconstructed plan, some of us retired upstairs to dress Jane as Punch's wife, in a witches hat, a green petticoat and a scarlet shawl (the remains of our last year's masquerade) Mrs M.J. On Twelfth Night we had a delightful evening.about our dress King and Queen, W Morris was King, I was Queen, Papa- Prince Busty Trusty, Mama- Red Riding Hood, Edward- Paddy O'Flaherty, G.- Johnny Bo-peep, H.- Timothy Trip, W.- Moses Abrahams, Eliz.- Mrs O'Flaherty, Ma.- Granny Grump, C- Cupid (by his own desire), Louisa- Princess Busty Trusty, Uncle H.B.- Punch, Aunt H.B.- Poll Mendicant, Jane- Punch's Wife, Mary- Columbine, Uncle John- Jerry the Milkman, Mrs Morris- Sukey Sweetlips, Sophia- Margery Muttonpie.