Chats on Household Curios

by Fred. W. Burgess

It is before the looking glass, the central object on, or forming a part of, the toilet table, that the chief mysteries of the toilet are performed. It is obvious, therefore, that the table, to be in accord with the use its name suggests, should be the grand receptacle for all the minor preparations and their boxes or covers, as well as for the brushes and combs and mirrors and sundries a Society beauty may require.

It is scarcely necessary to tax the mental faculties in imagining what may have been the equivalent to brushes and combs with which the prehistoric woman of thousands of years ago brushed and combed her tangled tresses. She was ingenious enough to break off and trim sharp prickly thorns, and to use them as pins to fasten her scanty home-made garments, no doubt; and she would probably find in Nature's supply what served her when making her toilet, and viewing herself in clear pool or stream. Artists have pictured such toilets, and poets have told of the toilet and the bath of Greek and Roman maidens of olden time.

It is said that the toilet of a Roman lady occupied much of her time. After she had risen and taken her bath she placed herself in the hands of the cosmotes, slaves who possessed the secrets of preserving and beautifying the complexion of the skin. She frequently wore a medicated mask and went through what would to-day be considered very painful operations. Her skin was rubbed with pumice stone, and superfluous hairs were removed with a pair of tweezers. Grecian slaves were adepts at colouring eyelashes and eyebrows and treating the lips with red pomade. The mirror was in frequent use. Many of the polished metal mirrors of those days were adorned with precious stones and had handles of mother-o'-pearl; and silver and gold were common in the fashioning of the framework. Hair appointments, including combs, were very decorative, frequently being made of ivory, and many beautiful carved specimens are to be seen in our museums.

The dressing table as we understand it to-day was of later days, for many centuries elapsed between the toilet of the ladies just mentioned and that of English dames whose odds and ends are to be found in most houses to-day—for few are without family relics of the toilet.

The toilet or dressing table was originally quite small, and made solely for the purpose named. It opened very much like a small desk or bureau, and was seldom more than 18 in. or 20 in. in width. The desk-like flap served the purpose of a table; behind it was a number of tiny drawers in which the secret mysteries of the toilet were hidden. There, too, were the lady's trinkets and jewellery, safely housed in the depths of those curious recesses. Such a table was surmounted by a looking glass of the type now spoken of in a generic sense as Sheraton. In line with the more elaborately fitted tables were independent glasses fitted with a small drawer—a poor substitute, however, for the toilet table and glass, combined or used in conjunction, in front of which the ladies of the eighteenth century performed their toilets.

In Fig. [64] is illustrated a very beautiful glass of the Oriental style of japanned decoration. The slide supports of the desk-like flap are on the principle adopted in the construction of contemporary bureaux. There is also a drawer, full of compartments, which draws out and discloses their covers and some of the instruments and articles of the toilet they contain.

Combs.

The combs of olden time were much more elaborate affairs than they are to-day. It would appear that the comb which must so frequently have been viewed by the fair user was considered the most appropriate toilet requisite on which to expend care and to lavish costly labour in order to make it truly a thing of beauty, to be retained and even jealously guarded.

The precious metals and ivory were used as well as hard woods. Alas! like the fate of modern combs, the teeth—coarse and fine—snapped one by one, and oftentimes a rare and beautiful back, between the two rows of teeth that once were, is nearly all that is left of the once perfect comb. Many combs of ivory, however, carved all over with exquisite miniatures, have been preserved, and the scenes upon them have been incidents of the chase, classic love scenes, and sometimes reproductions in picture form of well-known biblical scenes, not always of the most delicately chosen subjects.

Not long ago a very remarkable gold comb of first-century workmanship was found near the village of Znamenka, in Southern Russia, where excavations in a burial mound had brought to light the tomb of a Scythian king, whose head was adorned with this beautiful comb. The upper portion represented a combat between three warriors, one mounted on a charger. That comb, however, should be classed among "dress" combs rather than dressing combs.