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Lewis Littlepage and the Amazing Silk-embroidered Dreamsuit
25 Plays2 years ago
“Conservative” by the standards of its day, the three-piece suit worn by American statesman and bon vivant Lewis Littlepage (1762–1802) at the court of Catherine the Great is sewn of silk and embroidered with sprays of blue, white, and grey flowers. Neal Hurst, curator of textiles and historic dress at Colonial Williamsburg, comes on our Curious Objects podcast to discuss this colorful garment in connection with Littlepage’s similarly colorful life—from contretemps with American Founding Father John Jay and service in the Spanish Army, to his career as chamberlain to Stanislaw II of Poland.
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Transcript
Introduction and Historical Role Play
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Curious Objects brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
00:00:08
Speaker
I'm Ben Miller.
00:00:09
Speaker
Let's do a little role play.
00:00:12
Speaker
Okay, no, not that kind.
00:00:13
Speaker
I mean historical role play.
00:00:15
Speaker
Imagine yourself born in 1762 in Virginia.
00:00:19
Speaker
By colonial Virginia standards, your family is prosperous, but life is still hard.
00:00:23
Speaker
You're a smart and precocious young man.
00:00:26
Speaker
You go to college while the Revolutionary War is heating up.
00:00:29
Speaker
You are meeting influential people and impressing them.
00:00:32
Speaker
You're fighting in battles.
00:00:34
Speaker
You encounter George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette and John Jay, who you somehow managed to seriously piss off.
00:00:40
Speaker
But it doesn't matter.
00:00:41
Speaker
Your career is skyrocketing.
00:00:42
Speaker
You're winning friends and influencing people.
00:00:45
Speaker
You are traveling across France and Spain and Poland.
00:00:49
Speaker
And when you're 25 years old, you find yourself a court diplomat.
Diplomatic Attire and Historical Insights
00:00:54
Speaker
You're not easily intimidated, but let's be honest, this is the big leagues and you must make a good impression.
00:01:01
Speaker
You look down at yourself and... what are you wearing?
00:01:06
Speaker
So obviously if this is a nightmare, you realize you're standing in the imperial court buck naked.
00:01:11
Speaker
But this is not a dream.
00:01:14
Speaker
And in fact, you've carefully selected a spectacular three-piece suit for the occasion.
00:01:18
Speaker
It's made of the richest materials, meticulously constructed, tastefully decorated.
00:01:23
Speaker
Every detail is honed to perfection.
00:01:26
Speaker
This is a suit that will take you far.
00:01:29
Speaker
But what you don't know is that this suit will take itself even farther, and that 250 years later on, that very suit will be the subject of a podcast.
00:01:39
Speaker
Although, of course, you have no idea what a podcast is.
Interview with Neil Hurst, Historical Clothing Expert
00:01:42
Speaker
But we have a terrific guest to talk us through the extraordinary story of this garment, what it represents, what it meant to its owner, what it can teach us about taste and values and ways of life.
00:01:53
Speaker
around the birth of America.
00:01:54
Speaker
That guest is Neil Hurst, curator of textiles and historic dress at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
00:02:02
Speaker
And in case you don't already know, Colonial Williamsburg is home to living history.
00:02:07
Speaker
So Neil doesn't just study old clothes, he actually makes them, which is both very cool and also a good reminder that the actual practice and execution of craft is such a critical element for understanding how and why things were done the way they were.
00:02:21
Speaker
Neil, thanks for joining me.
00:02:23
Speaker
Good morning.
00:02:23
Speaker
Thank you.
00:02:24
Speaker
How are you, Ben?
00:02:25
Speaker
I'm great, thanks.
00:02:26
Speaker
And I'm about to stump you with some rapid fire questions.
00:02:30
Speaker
Are you ready?
00:02:30
Speaker
I'm going to try.
00:02:32
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:33
Speaker
First up, what's the most impractical piece of historical clothing that you've ever seen?
00:02:39
Speaker
The most impractical piece of clothing?
00:02:43
Speaker
Probably some of the various undergarments that we have that survive from different time periods.
00:02:52
Speaker
I mean, I think they were practical in the period, but they may seem impractical to us.
00:02:58
Speaker
Tough to put on and harder to take off.
00:03:01
Speaker
Yes, in a certain sense.
00:03:03
Speaker
You know, we have a pair of very unusual under drawers that was kind of solving a problem of having to not wear two pairs of suspenders.
00:03:12
Speaker
So I think we would view them probably pretty impractical, but I think they were trying to solve a problem that we don't realize they had or we might have had, you know, 200 years ago.
00:03:24
Speaker
And here I am not even wearing one pair of suspenders.
00:03:26
Speaker
All right.
00:03:28
Speaker
What's the most challenging textile reproduction that you've made?
00:03:32
Speaker
Oh, the most challenging, probably, you know, I have made a variety of things for a variety of time periods.
00:03:40
Speaker
And then, you know, one of the things that was certainly most challenging was making a copy of General Patton from the Second World War, his uniform called the Green Hornet, which was this sort of uniform devised to, you know, sort of create a spree de corps amongst the tank battalions that were forming up right before the Second World War.
00:04:00
Speaker
It was just...
00:04:01
Speaker
A pretty challenging garment to put together.
00:04:03
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:05
Speaker
You've been banned from clothing and textiles.
00:04:07
Speaker
I mean, not from wearing them, but from studying and making them.
00:04:11
Speaker
So you have to pick a new specialty.
00:04:12
Speaker
What's that going to be?
00:04:15
Speaker
New specialty, I think it would probably have to be either ceramics or maybe even portraiture or painting.
Exploring Interests Beyond Clothing
00:04:24
Speaker
What's so interesting to you about ceramics?
00:04:28
Speaker
You know, I just love the technology that, you know, sort of surrounds ceramics, you know, and how different individuals are coming up with different ways of firing things and making different things look like what, you know, is in demand, but is not quite there.
00:04:45
Speaker
You know, the sort of trying to make things look like porcelain, but you're not quite there sometimes.
00:04:52
Speaker
I just love that sort of technology aspect of it.
00:04:55
Speaker
Cool.
00:04:55
Speaker
What's the most interesting piece of clothing in the 2017 Beauty and the Beast remake?
00:05:02
Speaker
Oh, geez.
00:05:04
Speaker
You know, I really do like the Beast's clothing.
00:05:08
Speaker
I think it's perhaps a little bit more closer to what somebody would have been wearing in a fairy tale set sort of in the 18th century.
Misconceptions and Adaptations in Historical Clothing
00:05:21
Speaker
But, you know, Belle's clothing is just as interesting, too.
00:05:24
Speaker
So I always find it interesting how they are sort of riffing off of, you know, period dress.
00:05:32
Speaker
What is the beast wearing and what's so cool about that?
00:05:36
Speaker
Oh, it's just a coat, you know, great coat with a little bit more attention to detail in terms of, you know, how those coats were cut at that point in time, you know, tall standing collars and things like that, which give it a little bit more of a historical flair to it, a little bit more truer to when that fairy tale was written.
00:05:53
Speaker
What's your favorite museum to visit other than Colonial Williamsburg, of course?
00:05:59
Speaker
I would have to say my most favorite museum would be the Victorian Albert Museum in London.
00:06:04
Speaker
You're not the first person to say that on this show.
00:06:08
Speaker
What's one misconception that people have about your field that you'd like to correct?
00:06:16
Speaker
You know, I think most people assume that it took forever to get dressed.
00:06:22
Speaker
And how could you wear so many layers?
00:06:25
Speaker
But, you know, we're we're very quick to forget that, you know, our counterparts, whether it's 100 years ago or 200 years ago, had to deal with weather and climate much more than we ever have to today.
00:06:37
Speaker
You know, we can go from our air conditioned house to our air conditioned car to our air conditioned workplace, you
00:06:42
Speaker
But, you know, if it's 95 degrees outside, it's probably pretty close to that inside your house in the 18th century.
00:06:48
Speaker
So dressing for the weather is something that we have kind of lost.
00:06:54
Speaker
And I think we just assume that, you know, they were just miserable and hot, but yet they had a huge range in textiles and things to choose from to be as comfortable as possible.
00:07:05
Speaker
Yeah, just try to remind me of that next summer when I'm wearing a suit and tie on the subway in New York.
00:07:13
Speaker
Exactly.
00:07:14
Speaker
What did George Washington love so much about the so-called American hunting shirt?
00:07:20
Speaker
You know, that is one of the garments that he is going to use to establish sort of, again, a esprit de corps amongst the troops and sort of a leveling amongst the army.
00:07:30
Speaker
But it was cheap and it was convenient to make for a brand new army that has just sort of founded itself around Boston.
00:07:41
Speaker
What's something that you could only have learned about historic clothing through the experience of making it?
00:07:48
Speaker
I think a lot of that is sort of delving into the construction of it.
00:07:52
Speaker
Construction can tell us a tremendous amount of how these things are put together and can help individuals discern whether the garment is actually from the time period that it says it's from or has it been remade.
00:08:08
Speaker
So really being able to deep dive into that construction and knowing how
00:08:13
Speaker
these things were put together because once the sewing machine is invented, it completely puts that on its head.
00:08:19
Speaker
Construction changes drastically.
Podcast Review and Listener Engagement
00:08:23
Speaker
What's one book that an amateur should read to understand your field?
00:08:28
Speaker
You know, probably my favorite book and the one that we use here constantly is What Clothes Revealed by Linda Baumgarten.
00:08:38
Speaker
That book alone probably changed the understanding of the historic dress feel and the textile feel more than anything.
00:08:45
Speaker
Okay, last rapid fire question.
00:08:48
Speaker
What was the last work of art or decorative arts that you saw that gave you goosebumps?
00:08:53
Speaker
That gave me goosebumps.
00:08:55
Speaker
I think probably one of the ones that certainly gave me goosebumps is when I was working for the Museum of the American Revolution and we were able to get on loan in 2016 some of the pieces of the statue of King George III that were torn down in New York City.
00:09:16
Speaker
What was so motivating about that for you?
00:09:19
Speaker
You know, it's just one of those sort of causal effects that the revolution had.
00:09:24
Speaker
You know, it's just, you know, here's this guilt, giant guilt led statue of the king and just the throes of revolution and fervor, you know, incite these individuals to tear that statue down.
00:09:38
Speaker
And the fact that these pieces still remained, you know,
00:09:43
Speaker
being you know held in collections uh across the united states mostly the new york historical society but um just just amazing to see and to know that you know something from that event just survives
00:09:58
Speaker
Okay, well, we'll be back in a moment with Neil Hurst in the story of this fascinating three-piece suit.
00:10:03
Speaker
First, just a reminder that you can see images at themagazineantiques.com slash podcast and a weekly nudge for you to take a moment to give Curious Objects a rating and to write us a review.
00:10:15
Speaker
My favorite recent one says, I listened to this show to lower my blood pressure and also that I've started collecting something because of the show, which is really special and I'm so happy to hear that.
00:10:27
Speaker
But whatever you have to say about Curious Objects, reviews are a terrific way to help the podcast reach new listeners.
Adventures of Louis Littlepage
00:10:33
Speaker
And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, that is extremely easy.
00:10:36
Speaker
Just go to the Curious Objects show page and scroll down to where it says ratings and reviews and tap the write a review button.
00:10:44
Speaker
And of course, if you want to get in touch with me directly, you can email me at curiousobjectspodcast at gmail.com or find me on Instagram at Objective Interest.
00:10:56
Speaker
All right, let's get back to Neil Hurst.
00:10:58
Speaker
So Neil, for starters, what does this three-piece suit look like?
00:11:03
Speaker
Sure thing.
00:11:04
Speaker
So the suit itself is, you know, probably by all descriptions for the 18th century, fairly conservative, which is pretty funny, you know, because I don't think we view it that way.
00:11:15
Speaker
But it's sort of this compound stripe.
00:11:18
Speaker
It's blue and white stripe, but very fine.
00:11:21
Speaker
And it's kind of like a model stripe.
00:11:23
Speaker
So it's not like pinstripe, so to speak.
00:11:27
Speaker
And then the entire suit is fully embroidered with this sort of white and off-white flowers.
00:11:36
Speaker
They're going down the center front, around the pocket flaps.
00:11:39
Speaker
Each button is beautifully embroidered.
00:11:41
Speaker
And it's bordered with sort of fuzzy chenille that makes up some of these petals.
00:11:49
Speaker
And the most exterior of it, sort of the actual...
00:11:54
Speaker
edge of the coat and edge of the pocket flap is this incredible sort of very fine metal work that must have just glimmered when Little Page was wearing it.
00:12:04
Speaker
So the coat, waistcoat and breeches are all embroidered in the same manner and they all match.
00:12:09
Speaker
The whole thing is what they would refer to in the period as a ditto suit.
00:12:12
Speaker
So all three pieces are matching.
00:12:14
Speaker
Okay, so you just gave us a little spoiler with the word Little Page.
00:12:19
Speaker
And provenance really is everything with this suit.
00:12:22
Speaker
So tell me, who is Little Page?
00:12:25
Speaker
Yeah, so Louis Little Page is a really quite the interesting character.
00:12:29
Speaker
He was born December 19th, 1762.
00:12:32
Speaker
So his birthday is just around the corner here.
00:12:36
Speaker
And he was born in either New Kent County or Hanover County, Virginia.
00:12:42
Speaker
It's kind of disputed at this point.
00:12:44
Speaker
And his father was Colonel James Littlepage and sort of an upper middling class family did did OK.
00:12:53
Speaker
But by the time Lewis was three or four years old, his father dies.
00:12:59
Speaker
And so now he is sort of an orphan and.
00:13:02
Speaker
His mom is trying to figure out what to do with him.
00:13:06
Speaker
So he kind of gets moved around from uncle to uncle to uncle, trying to find some sort of education for him.
00:13:14
Speaker
Thankfully, his father did set aside money for his father.
00:13:19
Speaker
For his education.
00:13:20
Speaker
And eventually he is sent to the College of William and Mary.
00:13:25
Speaker
And there, you know, we get a little bit more sort of reading on Little Page and a couple of the professors there and some of his tutors think him as quite a genius.
00:13:34
Speaker
Very, very smart.
00:13:36
Speaker
He is transcribing Latin readily.
00:13:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:44
Speaker
and publishing it in newspapers, writing poems.
00:13:46
Speaker
So he is pretty well-educated and picks it up very quickly.
00:13:53
Speaker
And so it's while he was at the College of William & Mary that a family friend who is in Philadelphia suggested to John Jay, who's getting ready to go over to Spain to be a minister there for the newly formed United States, that little page would accompany him and would greatly benefit from him.
00:14:15
Speaker
So Jay, who really knew nothing of Little Page, was like, yeah, sure, no problem.
00:14:20
Speaker
Come on over.
00:14:21
Speaker
You know, basically meet me in Madrid.
00:14:24
Speaker
Which just seems crazy for like to tell a 17-year-old in, you know, 1777, essentially.
00:14:32
Speaker
I mean, that would seem crazy today when you could catch a flight over.
00:14:35
Speaker
But God, I mean.
00:14:37
Speaker
A four-week trip by boat might be a little bit more.
00:14:40
Speaker
I'm not sure.
00:14:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:43
Speaker
Wild.
00:14:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:44
Speaker
So, but he does, he goes to Madrid.
00:14:46
Speaker
Right.
00:14:47
Speaker
So, so little page is like, great.
00:14:49
Speaker
Yep.
00:14:50
Speaker
I'll meet you there.
00:14:50
Speaker
And Jay says that I will pay for your sort of boarding expenses, which is going to cause a lot more problems in their relationship later on.
00:15:01
Speaker
But essentially little page gets on board ship and arrives in France in 1780.
00:15:06
Speaker
But essentially he, he ends up convalescing for nearly a year in Bordeaux.
00:15:12
Speaker
before actually getting to Madrid and sort of hooking up with John Jay.
00:15:17
Speaker
Wow, I think I need to get sick.
00:15:20
Speaker
You're in Bordeaux sounds pretty nice.
00:15:23
Speaker
Well, it's pretty nice until you show up to Madrid and then hand all of your expenses for a year to John Jay.
00:15:32
Speaker
Jay is kind of like, what is all this?
00:15:36
Speaker
And so, you know, little page is running off of fumes in terms of money.
00:15:40
Speaker
He has very, very, very little money.
00:15:43
Speaker
And so he's sort of begging Jay to to not only give him sort of pocket money, but also to sort of continue to pay all his expenses.
00:15:50
Speaker
But Jay is just like, you know, I this is this is not what we bargained for.
00:15:54
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:15:56
Speaker
And so because Little Page has sort of run out of money, he is – but he's at the court of Spain.
00:16:02
Speaker
He sort of befriends the Duke de Creon who is getting ready to go on an expedition to Menorca and essentially will become a volunteer and an aide-de-camp in the Spanish army under the Duke de Creon.
00:16:22
Speaker
So he's really a charmer.
00:16:23
Speaker
I mean, he is just talking his way into meeting after meeting and position after position.
00:16:28
Speaker
It really does sound like it.
00:16:29
Speaker
Yeah, he must be really good at not only picking up language and speaking in the native tongue, but also picking up French because that's what most of the courts are using to speak with.
00:16:42
Speaker
So he ends up going to Menorca.
00:16:45
Speaker
He is there for quite a while.
00:16:47
Speaker
It's obviously a successful mission there with the Duke of Creon.
00:16:52
Speaker
And then eventually comes back when the siege of Gibraltar is taking place.
00:16:58
Speaker
And so here you have the allied armies of the French and the Spanish army.
00:17:05
Speaker
of course, against the English who are sitting on the rock of Gibraltar.
00:17:09
Speaker
He meets up with an old war buddy, the Prince of Nassau-Siegun, and they had fought together at Gibraltar.
00:17:18
Speaker
And Nassau-Siegun is married to a Polish princess, the princess, the daughter of King Stanislaus II of Poland.
00:17:30
Speaker
So Nassau-Siegen invites Little Page to come with him as they're kind of taking a roundabout way to get to Gradno, where the Polish-Lithuanian diet or governmental body is meeting.
00:17:46
Speaker
But they're going to go to...
00:17:49
Speaker
Constantinople first and then basically.
00:17:53
Speaker
Hold on.
00:17:55
Speaker
So so little pages now he's in Paris.
00:17:59
Speaker
He meets now he's he's cavorting with Polish royalty.
00:18:03
Speaker
Yes.
00:18:04
Speaker
And somehow going in the middle of all this to the Ottoman Empire.
00:18:07
Speaker
Correct.
00:18:08
Speaker
You are.
00:18:08
Speaker
Who is this guy?
00:18:11
Speaker
Exactly.
00:18:13
Speaker
okay sorry continue they go to constantinople goes to constantinople um there is an assassination attempt on little page there what it is thwarted and the scimitar sword that was taken from the assassin still remains in the family today um and why was somebody in constantinople trying to assassinate this guy that nobody had ever heard of
00:18:38
Speaker
Well, there, there, again, there's some question about that too.
00:18:41
Speaker
Uh, they, you know, whether it was some type of diplomatic thing that was happening that, um, you know, sort of ordered this attempt, um, or, or something else.
00:18:54
Speaker
Uh, it's kind of, it's kind of unclear, sadly.
00:18:56
Speaker
And a lot of that is, is lost.
00:18:58
Speaker
Are you sure he didn't just make up this story for his own, you know,
The Craft of Littlepage's Suit
00:19:02
Speaker
personal?
00:19:02
Speaker
You know, I, I would have thought so, but I do find it interesting that the sword does survive.
00:19:07
Speaker
Um,
00:19:07
Speaker
So, you know, that's the first thing I would do if I was making up that story is go out and buy a nice sword.
00:19:14
Speaker
I mean, there is there's probably a grain of truth in there somewhere.
00:19:19
Speaker
But so anyway, the the the Nassau Seagans and Little Page, they leave the Ottoman Empire and they head up the Dnepr River in the eventually.
00:19:33
Speaker
Actually make it to Gradnow where Little Page will finally and for the first time meet the Polish kings, King Stanislaus II.
00:19:43
Speaker
And he begins his court duties as a diplomat working for King Stanislaus.
00:19:51
Speaker
Okay, great.
00:19:52
Speaker
So we've gotten now to the critical moment in this biography of Little Page at which this suit enters the picture.
00:20:01
Speaker
Yes.
00:20:01
Speaker
And I want to know, just to give us a little bit of context around this, what do you think Little Page's clothes meant to him?
00:20:11
Speaker
I mean, how important was the clothing that he was wearing to his image, to the duties that he was performing at court?
00:20:22
Speaker
Was this like a fundamental critical part of his personality or was it more of an accessory?
00:20:29
Speaker
Yeah, I think for Louis Littlepage, clothing was extremely important for him.
00:20:34
Speaker
And this really bears out through not only the clothing that survives from him personally to the present day, but the inventories of his clothing that were taken at his death in 1802.
00:20:48
Speaker
But also the scant writing.
00:20:50
Speaker
We don't have a lot of papers from Littlepage because he does order all of his papers to be burnt together.
00:20:55
Speaker
When he when he dies in his will.
00:20:58
Speaker
But there's a few things that like it just suggests that he's kind of a clothes horse.
00:21:04
Speaker
But it's it's really important for his image as either an officer in the army or a diplomatic, you know, as a diplomat going to to the Russian court.
00:21:14
Speaker
So his clothing plays a really important role for him.
00:21:20
Speaker
And we see that at least with the surviving clothing from him as well.
00:21:23
Speaker
You know, whether.
00:21:25
Speaker
The garment may have been made five or 10 years earlier, but he's constantly updating them.
00:21:30
Speaker
But they tend to be very, very fashionable clothing.
00:21:33
Speaker
So this wasn't just pure vanity.
00:21:35
Speaker
There were real social expectations around what he was supposed to wear in this, you know, elevated company.
00:21:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's and some of it is prescribed to by the court like you have to wear certain things.
00:21:48
Speaker
And I think you're expected to to wear certain things.
00:21:50
Speaker
I mean, I think many people would would think back to Franklin and wearing the sort of plain brown coat and the fur cap.
00:21:57
Speaker
You know, he's kind of going against the grain, but he got a lot of attention for it.
00:22:03
Speaker
And, you know, ultimately ended up, you know, eating in an alliance with the French and the Americans.
00:22:09
Speaker
And so.
00:22:11
Speaker
Little Page is a little bit more prescribed.
00:22:13
Speaker
He's a little bit more, you know, I think what your typical court wear is fairly.
00:22:18
Speaker
He's also 25 years old, right?
00:22:20
Speaker
You're right.
00:22:20
Speaker
You're right.
00:22:21
Speaker
He probably doesn't want to rock the boat.
00:22:22
Speaker
Exactly.
00:22:23
Speaker
He is pretty young, you know, in terms of folks who are running around these courts at this time.
00:22:34
Speaker
When did making plans get this complicated?
00:22:37
Speaker
It's time to streamline with WhatsApp.
00:22:40
Speaker
The secure messaging app that brings the whole group together.
00:22:43
Speaker
Use polls to settle dinner plans.
00:22:45
Speaker
Send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th.
00:22:49
Speaker
And never miss a meme or milestone.
00:22:52
Speaker
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00:23:00
Speaker
So does this suit that we're talking about, is that sort of similar to the kinds of clothing that his peers would have been wearing at court?
00:23:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think so.
00:23:10
Speaker
So the suit, as we've talked about, consists of a coat.
00:23:14
Speaker
The coat is covering you from the neck down to the back of the knee, long sleeves, fairly deep cuffs, which wasn't the fashion.
00:23:23
Speaker
And we tend to find that these courts tend to be kind of conservative in their look.
00:23:28
Speaker
The waistcoat is pretty typical, does not have any sleeves to it and matches the coat almost identically.
00:23:34
Speaker
And then the breeches themselves, again, they're going to cover you from the sort of hip down to right below the knee.
00:23:40
Speaker
And these have what they call a fall or flap in the front of them, which is how they close.
00:23:47
Speaker
But they're more cutting edge in terms of their styling.
00:23:51
Speaker
The flap itself goes from the side seam of the one leg to the other side seam of the other leg, which is what we're just sort of seeing that coming into style in the mid-1780s.
00:24:03
Speaker
And was this piece made there in Poland?
00:24:06
Speaker
Yeah, it must have been.
00:24:08
Speaker
And so Little Page would have purchased this as a sort of like a pre-embroidered kit.
00:24:14
Speaker
So there would have been professional embroiderers who are doing this type of work.
00:24:19
Speaker
And he would then go to a shop probably in Warsaw.
00:24:24
Speaker
He did spend quite a bit of time in Krakow as well.
00:24:26
Speaker
And so he may have purchased it there and then employed a tailor to then cut it out and sew it up.
00:24:33
Speaker
Okay, so this was actually a multiple step process.
00:24:35
Speaker
So he goes shopping, he finds something that he likes, but then it has to be tailored to suit him specifically.
00:24:41
Speaker
Yeah, tailors in the 18th century, they're working by measuring.
00:24:46
Speaker
And the thing to keep in mind here as well is that most men, whether you're Louis Little Page or the King of Poland or the tradesmen working in Virginia making wheels, whatever it might be,
00:25:01
Speaker
They're generally all going to tailor.
00:25:03
Speaker
So that is not the unique part of this.
00:25:06
Speaker
It's the quality of the textile.
00:25:08
Speaker
It's the embroidery.
00:25:10
Speaker
That is really what's going to scream that this suit is a court suit rather than sort of the tailoring aspect to it.
00:25:17
Speaker
So what were the actual choices that little page got to make about the clothing?
00:25:22
Speaker
You know, that is a great question.
00:25:23
Speaker
And it is something that I am not entirely sure of in terms of did he have a choice, you know, or was this sort of purchased for him on behalf of King Stanenslaus?
00:25:35
Speaker
Hmm.
00:25:35
Speaker
Hmm.
00:25:36
Speaker
I have not been able to find anything along those lines, but it may have been completely prescribed for him.
00:25:43
Speaker
He may not have had any choice at all.
00:25:46
Speaker
Interesting.
00:25:47
Speaker
And how long would he have had to wait between ordering it in the first place and actually being able to wear it?
00:25:55
Speaker
So some tailor shops by the 1780s, I know in the United States at this point and also in Great Britain, they are advertising they could turn a suit around in a day, which seems pretty quick.
00:26:11
Speaker
But more than likely, he is being kind to his tailors and –
00:26:17
Speaker
Basically allowing them because, you know, they're not his only customer.
00:26:21
Speaker
He probably thinks that.
00:26:24
Speaker
But if I know anything about little page, he's probably charmed the pants off his tailor and they're making it for him for free.
00:26:31
Speaker
But he's probably giving them a week, two weeks, you know, maybe even longer to have those things.
00:26:35
Speaker
You know, I think it's just kind of courtesy for having your close meet.
00:26:40
Speaker
Sure, sure.
00:26:41
Speaker
But not months and months and months.
00:26:43
Speaker
No, no, no, no.
00:26:44
Speaker
You know, these the tailors are paid in the period are paid by the piece.
00:26:48
Speaker
And so, you know, they have to make these things quickly or else they're not going to be making any money.
00:26:53
Speaker
And how expensive would a suit like this have actually been?
00:26:56
Speaker
Well, I think this suit, unless the tailor was doing the embroidery in house, which it's possible.
00:27:03
Speaker
And we definitely do have references to that.
00:27:05
Speaker
It's kind of rare.
00:27:07
Speaker
You know, you're probably looking at somewhere somewhere around a pound, you know, in English language.
00:27:13
Speaker
English money at that point in time.
00:27:16
Speaker
So it's probably, you know, for the average working person, that would have been pretty expensive, you know.
00:27:24
Speaker
But if you're looking at something like the fabric, because I think the other thing to understand here is the fabric is worth more than the labor going into it.
00:27:33
Speaker
He may have spent four or five pounds on the fabric, like all the fabric that are needed and the buttons and everything to actually make the suit.
00:27:42
Speaker
versus the one pound or so that's going into the actual making of it.
00:27:47
Speaker
Interesting.
00:27:48
Speaker
If the tailor can provide that ability to sell the fabric and do the embroidery, and in the court, they may have been able to do that, they're certainly on the better end of that profit scale.
00:28:01
Speaker
So let's talk about that craft.
00:28:03
Speaker
So what materials were used to make this suit?
00:28:06
Speaker
So the suit itself is made completely out of silk, at least the exterior is.
00:28:12
Speaker
And then in some of the areas where you're not going to see, like the sleeve linings and like the pocket bags, those types of things tend to be made out of a more utilitarian linen.
00:28:26
Speaker
So, I mean, you're not going to see it.
00:28:28
Speaker
So there's no reason to spend the money on it in that area.
00:28:31
Speaker
And that was kind of a typical practice, you know, for most English and American men.
00:28:37
Speaker
And where was that silk coming from?
00:28:39
Speaker
So the silk, you know, probably it may have been English silk that was then coming across the English Channel and going to Poland.
00:28:47
Speaker
But it also may have been coming as far away as as China being produced there as a raw material, spun and woven and then exported to Poland across Europe.
00:28:58
Speaker
Wow.
00:28:59
Speaker
So you mentioned that the suit might have actually been updated over time.
00:29:04
Speaker
How and why?
00:29:06
Speaker
So we know that there's a couple of unique things that are on the suit that you're not going to find on any other suit except for a Chamberlain.
00:29:15
Speaker
And the Chamberlain is an individual who's sort of...
00:29:22
Speaker
Job is symbolized by carrying a key.
00:29:26
Speaker
And so LittlePages key survives and it would have hung off the two buttons at the back of the coat.
00:29:32
Speaker
So those two buttons are still on the coat today, which is pretty cool to see that.
Legacy of Littlepage's Clothing Collection
00:29:38
Speaker
But on the front of the coat, there is now a embroidered star for the Order of St.
00:29:47
Speaker
Stanenslaus.
00:29:48
Speaker
And we know that Louis Littlepage was honored with this order in January of 1790.
00:29:54
Speaker
So this suit...
00:29:57
Speaker
that he would have worn in 1787 on the diplomatic mission to Russia to meet Catherine the Great.
00:30:03
Speaker
The star was then added to it sometime after January of 1790.
00:30:08
Speaker
There's also a little cord because with the star, you then also get to wear the ribbon that symbolizes that order as well.
00:30:19
Speaker
And so the left shoulder has a kind of like a little cord to keep the ribbon from kind of flopping around.
00:30:27
Speaker
It's more like a sash, you know, across the body.
00:30:29
Speaker
But so that that so the sleeve head would have had to been unpicked, that little cord put into it and then restitched up.
00:30:37
Speaker
And we see that evidence on the on the coat, which is pretty cool.
00:30:41
Speaker
OK, so round out our story for us.
00:30:43
Speaker
So where does Little Page go from here?
00:30:46
Speaker
So Louis ends up on this diplomatic mission to Russia.
00:30:52
Speaker
It is basically their meeting near Kiev.
00:30:57
Speaker
And, you know, what they're trying to figure out is how can we get Poland and Lithuania, who at this point are sort of a dual government, essentially, some protection.
00:31:11
Speaker
Essentially, war is breaking out across Europe.
00:31:16
Speaker
The age of revolution has taken hold amongst the lower classes.
00:31:22
Speaker
And, you know, the Polish people and the Lithuanians are kind of like, you know, we kind of like what we have going on here.
00:31:29
Speaker
But, you know, we might need like a protectorate almost or just some protection here.
00:31:35
Speaker
So nothing –
00:31:39
Speaker
This diplomatic mission doesn't really work very well.
00:31:44
Speaker
Catherine Gray is kind of going to do her own thing.
00:31:47
Speaker
And then for the next few years, Little Page is kind of working on the same thing with other countries that are a little bit more stable.
00:31:56
Speaker
So he actually goes back to Spain and begins kind of massaging the relationship between the Poles and the Spanish there.
00:32:06
Speaker
But, you know, essentially this fervor is just going to kind of explode.
00:32:12
Speaker
And what kind of blows my mind, and I don't know really how to wrap my head around it, is here you have Louis Littlepage.
00:32:21
Speaker
Wandering through France on his way to Spain when the reign of terror essentially is happening.
00:32:29
Speaker
But because he's an American and the Americans have achieved liberty and independence, he seems to be like they seem to let him like it's OK, which I which I find very interesting and how he's able to navigate all this.
00:32:44
Speaker
Or maybe he just has this incredible charisma that- Yeah, that too, absolutely.
00:32:49
Speaker
To lead to totally charmed life.
00:32:50
Speaker
Was he still wearing his suit at this time in France?
00:32:54
Speaker
You know, he probably was, you know, because he is a diplomat and he's a member of the order of King Stanislaus.
00:33:02
Speaker
So I think some of those diplomatic, some of those orders help you perhaps, you know, with your diplomacy that you've been sort of awarded these things.
00:33:13
Speaker
So how does the suit finally make its way back to America?
00:33:17
Speaker
So what happens is there is a there is a constitution written in Poland in 1791.
00:33:25
Speaker
And this is the second constitution ever written in the world, second only to the United States.
00:33:33
Speaker
And this really annoys Catherine the Great.
00:33:37
Speaker
And of course, she invades and like Russians do, it seems when they're angry and which leads the second partition of Poland.
00:33:48
Speaker
And then this kind of leads down a spiral of events.
00:33:53
Speaker
During the second partition, even with the constitution, Thaddeus Kosciuszko leads a revolt.
00:34:00
Speaker
Kosciuszko, of course, is well known for his military career during the American Revolution.
00:34:05
Speaker
He's a cavalry officer.
00:34:08
Speaker
In 1794, this revolt happens.
00:34:11
Speaker
And it was actually pretty successful, but essentially they just get outnumbered by the Russian army.
00:34:18
Speaker
And so by 1795, there's the third and final partition of Poland and basically the dissolve of the Polish state until the early 20th century.
00:34:30
Speaker
So there will not be a Poland for the entire 19th century, a country that is known as such.
00:34:36
Speaker
So with all that happening, you know, Little Page is caught up in all of this.
00:34:41
Speaker
And finally, when King Stanislaus is sort of ousted and put into exile, Little Page is basically forced out of his position.
00:34:53
Speaker
And finally, by...
00:34:56
Speaker
The catch here, though, of course, with Little Patriots, anything is he was owed money by the king.
00:35:02
Speaker
And so he tries to stay in Europe to finally get paid.
00:35:05
Speaker
And, of course, Catherine the Great dies and we go through all these different regime changes.
00:35:12
Speaker
So it's unclear if he actually gets paid or not.
00:35:14
Speaker
But by 1801, he returns to Virginia.
00:35:19
Speaker
He's only here for about another six or nine months.
00:35:24
Speaker
And then these other illnesses that he's been battling, he gets involved earlier in 1787 in the Russo-Turkish War.
00:35:34
Speaker
And he gets what he calls camp fever.
00:35:37
Speaker
And that seems to plague him for his entire life and is what is thought that kills him in 1802.
00:35:46
Speaker
So in 1802, there is an inventory.
00:35:49
Speaker
So he dies, bachelor, unmarried, no kids.
00:35:53
Speaker
He has a German servant with him.
00:35:57
Speaker
And he leaves the bulk of his clothing to his stepbrother, a man by the name of Waller Holliday.
00:36:06
Speaker
And so all of his clothing, which we have a complete inventory of, goes to the Holiday family.
00:36:13
Speaker
And a few things were also given to his sister because he has a sister from his dad.
00:36:20
Speaker
So mom remarries a Holiday, but he has a sister that he does give a few things to.
00:36:28
Speaker
And so the objects stay in the Holiday family until 1952.
00:36:33
Speaker
Then they were given to the Valentine Museum.
00:36:37
Speaker
And they had them until 2023, where they transferred them to our collection here at Colonial Williamsburg.
00:36:47
Speaker
So what is the significance of this suit and of the whole Little Page collection to Colonial Williamsburg?
00:36:54
Speaker
You know, it really fits really well with our mission here.
00:36:57
Speaker
And of course, that is, you know, looking at Virginians and the study of Virginia.
00:37:03
Speaker
And, you know, for our historic dress collection, it's really important because it is now the single largest grouping of clothing from one individual that we have in the collection.
00:37:15
Speaker
And so we can learn a lot from it.
00:37:17
Speaker
It's not typical sort of English or American clothing.
00:37:22
Speaker
The embroidery styles are different.
00:37:24
Speaker
The construction styles are different.
00:37:26
Speaker
You can definitely tell that Poland is a lot colder than Virginia by the textile choices and how things are sewn together.
00:37:34
Speaker
And there's wadding in them to fit.
00:37:36
Speaker
to add warmth.
00:37:38
Speaker
Um, but it's just so interesting to see the choices and the variety of choices that, uh, an individual had, uh, who was obviously interested in clothing, um, you know, from about 1780 to probably the late 1790s.
00:37:53
Speaker
Fantastic.
00:37:54
Speaker
Well, Neil, this has been such a great journey that you've taken us on and I really appreciate you, uh, illuminating little pages life through the lens of this suit.
00:38:04
Speaker
Great.
00:38:05
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me.
00:38:06
Speaker
And Louis Littlepage will certainly be always an interesting character to deep dive into.
00:38:13
Speaker
Today's episode was edited and produced by Sammy Blotti with social media and web support from Sarah Blotta.
00:38:20
Speaker
Sierra Holt is our digital media and editorial associate.
00:38:23
Speaker
Our music is by Trap Rabbit and I'm Ben Miller.
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