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Keeping it in the family

Published by The Dreamstress

I’ve blogged about the royal family of Portugal before, and while researching that post, I came across one of the common problems with European nobility.  The thing is, there just weren’t enough of them on speaking terms in each generation, so the ones that were on speaking terms tended to marry each other, leading to a lot of inbreeding.

So back to the Portugese royal family.  Joseph I of Portugal (6 June 1714 –  24 February 1777) had four daughters, two of whom, Maria I of Portugal (December 17, 1734 — March 20, 1816)  and Benedita, Princess of Brazil(25 July 1746 — 18 August 1829), married.

Maria I by Jose Leandro de Carvalho (1770—1834), 1800-1810

Maria, then Crown Princess, married her uncle, Pedro III of Portugal (5 July 1717 — 25 May 1786) on 1760, when she was 25 and he was 43.

Nice.

Maria and Pedro, uncle and niece, husband and wife

It gets worse though.

Seventeen years later, Maria’s youngest sister Benedita, then thirty,  married her fifteen year old cousin, who was also her nephew, as he was the child of Maria and Pedro.

Eeeg.

Benedita, Princess of Brazil, circa 1765

Portrait of Jose, Prince of Beira and Brazil, by Miguel António do Amaral (1710-1780), 1773

Sadly, but mercifully, and certainly not surprisingly, Benedita and Jose were unable to have children.

Wow madam…those are some shoes

Published by The Dreamstress

Some vintage items really challenge our cultural perceptions of an era.  Take these boots.

Boots, 1895-1915, V&A Museum

We think of the Edwardian women as status and propriety bound carryovers of the Victorian era, clad in layers of white and pastel frills, and encouraged to be eminently retiring and delicate and feminine.  These boots turn all of that on its head.  They are feminine, that’s for sure, but there is nothing retiring, pastel, or frilly about them!

They are so loud, and high, but the lack of ornamentation is also very elegantly restrained.  And the curves!   They are basically the shoe version of Camille Clifford’s figure!

Can you imagine the sensation that Camille would have cause if she had worn these?  My legs certainly don’t have the right curves to pull them off!

I wonder who did wear them, or what market they were intended for?  Perhaps they were the sort of shoes that ‘nice’ women would never consider.

Hehe, turn-of-the-century slapper boots!