Handkerchief, snuff handkerchief

A snuff handkerchief, with typical small allover design which disguised stains. These washable accessories were often carried in addition to the flamboyant larger silk squares. The latter were not for snuff but, as George Sala recorded, were placed 'daintily on your knee' when smoking or reading in a public room, or, 'if you liked to take forty winks', thrown 'negligently over your head'.

The handkerchief is block-printed in madder colours with triangles in dark red (?)(apex up) on lighter red (apex down) - "Etruscan" colouring with black and white horizontally striped border mock woven border. In the upper left corner the initials RD are carefully embroidered in white cross stitch. The design does not quite register and this is clearly a cheap product such as a pedlar would sell to working people. As such, it is rare. Its small size suggests that it may not be a snuff handkerchief but one given to or bought by a woman. It has been very carefully and skillfully hemmed, perhaps by a servant employed as a sempstress but for her own use. The hemming is finer than the printing. The embroidered initial are also very well done.