#0635  Gent's Smoking Cap   c. 1850-1860  

 United States

Materials: Chocolate brown velveteen, gold metallic braid cord and tassel, ball of wrapped cotton thread (tassel base), natural muslin lining, red China silk lining, buckram.

Condition: Excellent. Velveteen and trims perfect; part of the red silk outer lining gone.  

Measurements: Head C, 22"; Crown Ht, 6".

Comments: Style conscious men wore informal indoor caps from the 16th through the late 19th centuries. It was in the 1850s that a new soft  form known as a "smoking cap" became all the rage...."The form it took was a cross between the fashionable pillbox and the Turkish fez, and may owe some of its inspiration to the Crimean War....(it) was made the vehicle for every kind of domestic embroidery....and especially the crazes inspired by the East, such as applied Russian braid in scrolling arabesques patterns, with elaborate macramé tassels." (Hats, by Fiona Clark) At the time very popular in America and now rarely seen outside of museum collections.