Sew What?

Hopping Into Early Modern Frog Pouches

May 28, 2020 Isabella Rosner Season 1 Episode 3
Sew What?
Hopping Into Early Modern Frog Pouches
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode, Isabella explores one of her favourite needlework trends, 17th-century frog pouches. These cuties were teeny tiny bags, made of thread, wire, beads, and silk, that probably held sweet fragrances. They were made and worn in early modern England, but scholars disagree on when and why they were made. "Sew What?" attempts to answer these questions. Listen to find out all about these lil embroidered treasures! 

Whatsup stitches!!! Howdy hey and welcome to episode four. Today’s episode is about one of my most specific and weird needlework passions – 17th-century frog pouches. These bad boys are extremely delightful and super weird. I think you’ll like them as much as I do. As always, check out images of the objects I’ll be talking about today at @sewwhatpodcast on Twitter or Instagram (or both!).  

These things are somewhat self-explanatory –they are pouches that look like frogs. They’re made entirely of needlework and they are absolutely tiny and they are SO cute, ohmygod so cute. They’re a bit confusing too, though. There are six of these in public collections and they’re all a bit different so it’s slightly difficult to describe them generally, but here we go. The opening of the pouch is the frog’s mouth and there are gold braided drawstring cords near the frog’s head to hold it by. The frog’s torso is the tiny container. And the frog’s four legs are made out of wire with thread either wrapped around them or stitched around them. Each leg has lil toes made of wire which are DELIGHTFUL. Truly so cute. Some of them have eyes made of little beads and some don’t. The pouches are in the Ashmolean Museum, Museum of London, LACMA, Royal Collection Trust, University of Alberta, and one is somewhere unknown because it was sold at an auction house named Pook and Pook. Oh where art thou, sweet little sixth frog pouch?? 

Museums disagree on when these frog pouches were made and what they were used for. Some of the museums with these lil frog pals claim they’re from the early seventeenth century and others say they’re from the latter half of the century. The Ashmolean and the Royal Collection Trust date their pouches as simply ‘17th century,’ the Museum of London dates theirs from 1650-1680, LACMA dates theirs as ‘early 17th century’, the University of Alberta asserts theirs is from circa 1645, and Pook & Pook says theirs is from 1601-1630. Clearly, historic costume and textile experts have not determined when the frog pouches were made, what they were used for, and why they were so popular. But I have some ideas and in this episode I’ll go through them.  

Before we get into answering those questions, I wanna give you a very helpful description of one of the single frogs. This is the Ashmolean frog and it’s the only published description of the frog pouches. In the book English Embroideries of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, scholar Mary M. Brooks writes ‘Two firm sections, possibly leather, with some padding, form the base of the purse. These are covered with a green silk plain weave fabric. A continuous network of needlepoint stitches is worked over this fabric using a metal thread composed of a silk thread wrapped around with a fine wire. A mottled appearance has been created on the bottom section by laying down little patches of green silk floss between the silk and the needleworked mesh. A spring-like golden metal thread surrounds the eyes which are made from green and black glass beads. The same thread also decorates the upper section and edges. An inner pleated bag of cream silk, attached only at the hinge and at the ‘mouth’ opening, forms the actual purse. The two base sections are connected at the frog’s tail where the hinge is decorated with more of the spring-like metal thread. Thick wire bound around with the wire wrapped threads for part of their length forms the limbs and four-fingered ‘hands’. The ‘finger tips’ are wrapped in silk threads. The fine drawstring cord is made from five silk and two wrapped metal threads.’ 

Now, I think that paints a really good picture of how these objects look and what they were made out of. And now, time to get into answering those burning frog-centric questions.

First question – when were these frog pouches made? It’s really hard to date these cuties precisely because there’s no information about how they were worn. They never appear in portraits or print sources from the period. That’s a bit odd, I think. If they were something special, it would make sense someone would want to wear it in their portrait. Wouldn’t you want to wear your most special clothes if you only had one chance at a portrait? But given that quite a few frog pouches have survived, it’s likely they were at least somewhat common. If they were that common and were kinda everywhere, it’d make sense for them to appear in visual culture from the time. But they don’t show up anywhere. 

It’s also hard to date these pouches because it seems like museums that own these objects can’t agree on when they’re from. There’s no scholarship about them and there was no writing about them during the 17th century. It’s necessary to try to figure out when these pouches were made, though, because that could inform what cultural forces could have influenced their creation. The stitches used in the frog pouches, which include satin and tent stitch, do not point to any specific decade in the 17th century. Neither does the use of metal purl, which consisted of a metal thread made from a very fine wire wound around a teeny tiny core. Metal purl was used throughout the 17th century, from the tasselled pouches from the first half of the century to the embroidered cabinets and caskets of the second half. 

Surprisingly, though, one set of objects can help approximate when these frog bois were made. An English girl from Pinner named Martha Edlin made a really extensive needlework suite, which includes her colourful band sampler, whitework band sampler, beadwork jewellery case, and embroidered cabinet. Her needlework is well known and important because it is the only known set of a 17th century girl’s entire needlework education. Her entire collection is at the V&A and it is really delightful. Within Martha’s embroidered cabinet is a smorgasbord of miniscule goodies, including a medallion, manicure set, bodkin, locket, embroidered goose (my favourite), box with miniature silver table settings, pin cushions, miniature gloves, and needles and needlecases. Also in the embroidered cabinet is a little bitty purse shaped like bellows. (Bellows are the things you squeeze together to blow air into a fire). Those bellows are the key. 

Martha was born in 1660 and made the cabinet in 1671, so the stuff in the cabinet was likely made then or slightly after. Given the similar size and stitching technique between Martha Edlin’s bellows purse and the frog pouches, it seems like frog pouches may date from a similar time. The pouches are usually assumed to be from the early 17th century because it’s generally been accepted that purses made around 1665 and later have a different style and design. We can poke some holes in this argument, though, because few late-17th-century bags survive and literature about bags from this time tends to jump from early-17th-century examples to early eighteenth ones. Additionally, these frog pouches are different from both early and late-seventeenth-century pouches in size, shape, and even stitches. The frogs are much smaller, and, are, of course, more frog-shaped, than the more common rectangular sweet bags. While the frogs tend to be detached buttonhole stitch and couching, other bags of the early seventeenth century most often use tent stitch. Buttonhole stitch is very tricky to describe but here goes – the stitch catches a loop of thread on the fabric ground and the needle is brought to the back of the fabric at a right angle to the start of the stitch. Couching is easier to explain – you lay thread down across a surface and a couching stitch is used to fasten that thread down. A tent stitch is also pretty easy to explain – it crosses over the intersection of one horizontal and one vertical thread of canvas, creating a slanted stitch at a 45-degree angle. And there is your stitching lesson for the day!!! For all these reasons I just went through, I think the dating of frog pouches as early seventeenth century may be incorrect. I do realise this is a fiery claim, so let me know if you think otherwise. 

I also think that the context of one of the frog pouches indicates that these froggies are from the second half of the 17th century. The University of Alberta frog pouch was found within an embroidered cabinet, also in the university’s collection. The cabinet, featuring some sadly badly damaged raised work depicting the Biblical story of Joseph, has been dated to 1645. The frog pouch has been dated to then, too. It was found with two needlecases which are also contemporaneous. There’s no way to determine when in history the frog pouch was put in that embroidered cabinet, but it’s tempting to assume that, like Martha Edlin’s cabinet and the objects found inside it, they are roughly contemporaneous. If the dating of this cabinet as between 1650 and 1675 is correct, then the frog must be from a similar date. And that is my lengthy dating frog pouch diatribe over with!! Hope you followed all of that. 

And now, onto the second question – what were these frog pouches used for? Well, given the size of these purses, they were probably sweetbags. Sweetbags, which ranged in size from normal-sized pouches to the itty bitty frog, combined visual and olfactory pleasure. They held sweet-smelling herbs and flowers that, when held to the nose, gave their owners relief from the dank smells of 17th-century life. This was particularly convenient in times of plague, since people thought that the disease was miasmatic. This means it was thought to spread through bad air. Not only did sweet bags protect your nose from the stinky stinky smells of the 17th century, but it also was thought to prevent you from dropping dead from plague! Yay!! 

Some scholars think that the frog pouches were used to hold coins, but in reality that’s not a possibility because they’re so dang small. You could put like one coin in, but good luck getting it out. No one’s fingers are small enough to get all up in there. So yeah, pretty sure they were used to store sweet fragrances and herbs.

Aaaaand onto the third question, the one that started this whole deep dive into frog pouch research. Why frogs? Of all the things to make pouches in the shape of! What the heck! 

Basically all novelty pouches from this time period are frog pouches. There are three pouches that I know of shaped like grapes – two in the V&A and one at the Met. During the same Pook and Pook auction the frog pouch was sold at, a pouch from the same time period, shaped like a crab, was also sold. It could just be that pouches were shaped like frogs because frogs are pouch-shaped. But crabs are pouch shaped too, right? So then why weren’t those made as often? Sure, maybe frog pouches were made just because they are pouch shaped and sometimes things are inexplicable and just happen and aren’t results of larger trends or cultural happenings, but I think there may have been cultural forces at work that created the frog pouch trend. 

It’s tempting to include the fairy tale “The Frog Prince”, also known as “Iron Henry”, in the list of possible inspirations for the frog pouch trend, but that tale was almost definitely not involved.   While the story dates back to at least the 13th century and appeared in multiple versions and languages across Europe, it doesn’t seem to have existed in the UK until it was translated into English by Edgar Taylor in 1823. Even if the story did exist in England earlier than previously thought, I’d like to think women were not inspired by it, as the tale actually had the frog transform into a prince by being thrown at a wall, not kissed. That version of the story existed until the twentieth century and as you can tell it just makes me laugh. That is so wild. The three theories I’m going to talk about next are likely possible sources for our frog friends.  

Given that the pouches were likely made sometime from the late sixteenth century to the late seventeenth century, the first potentially inspiring event is Queen Elizabeth I’s close relationship with Francis, Duke of Anjou and Alencon. Francis was the heir to the French throne between 1574 and his death at only 30 years old in 1584. Although he was 22 years Elizabeth’s junior, had childhood smallpox scars, and was less than five feet tall, Elizabeth had a great love for him. Love is blind and we love to see it!! She affectionately called Francis her ‘frog’, possibly because of a frog earring he gave to her (and perhaps because he was a less than cute dude). The Duke was one of the Queen’s leading suitors, and many texts from the 16th century state that the two were very much in love. 

In 1579, during the Duke’s first visit to Elizabeth after many years of marriage negotiations and secret letters, it was said that Elizabeth declared, “I have never in my life seen a creature more agreeable to me” and that the French ambassador said, “The lady has with difficulty been able to entertain the Duke, being captivated, overcome with love. She told me she had never found a man whose nature and actions suited her better.” Although the two never married, Elizabeth really, really felt the pain of the Duke’s untimely death. She reportedly wept publicly for three weeks, wore black for six months, and described herself to the French ambassador as ‘a widow woman who has lost her husband’. 

Is it possible, then, that these frog pouches were made in the 1580s and were related to the love of Elizabeth and the Duke? There are no surviving contemporaneous written mentions of these frog pouches, so it is sadly impossible to know. But, given that Elizabeth’s pet name for the Duke may have originated in a piece of jewellery, it’s certainly possible that their love was commemorated with small, jewel-like pouches. Perhaps Elizabeth’s court wore these fragrant frog pouches as mementos of Elizabeth’s lost love, remembering him through sweet scents. 

Another possible royal inspiration for frog pouches took place near 30 years after Queen Elizabeth’s courtship with the Duke d’Anjou. In 1609, famous playwright and poet Ben Jonson wrote The Masque of Queens for the royal house of Stuart. It was one of many masques, which are basically plays, he wrote for the Stuarts. The masques were performed by Queen Anne and her courtiers. The Masque of Queens was performed February, 1609, at Whitehall Palace. In the show, a head witch and her 11 disciples have a little boogie before the disciples gossip about their crimes to the head witch. After their testimony, they dance again and are interrupted by the House of Fame, consisting of twelve virtuous queens, led by the real Queen Anne and eleven ladies of her court. The “masquers” were the queen and her ladies, who did not speak or sing, while the witches, or “anti-masquers” were likely paid actors and/or musicians. In the masque, one of the witches talks about where she has been and what she has brought with her. She says, “The screech-owls eggs, and the feathers black, the blood of the frog, and the bone in his back, I have been getting; and made of his skin a purset, to keep Sir Cranion in”. Now we may ask truly what the heck is happening in this sentence. Well, “Sir Cranion” refers to a spider with long, thin legs, or as we know them, daddy long legs. And a purset is a purse, which is fairly obvious. This witch has made a purse made out of an actual frog. Oof!! Real witchy behaviour, that! 

 Could this masque, which was published after being presented at court, have inspired women to stitch their own imitation frogs? Given the spooky nature of the frog pouch in the masque, this seems pretty unlikely, but perhaps there was something appealing about making and wearing an object associated with perversity, making it sweeter and more pleasant by filling it with fragrances. Maybe the girls were freaks!! Maybe the emo kids of the 21st century actually had a precedent in the 17th. 

Or maaaaaybe gals got inspired to make the little frog friends through Aesop’s Fables. In 1651, a dude named John Ogilby published the first edition of his translation of Aesop’s Fables. Ogilby was the first English writer to use Aesopian themes for political ends, writing his poems in a really lengthy, dramatic style. Very baroque and typical of the 17th century. The book was illustrated by Francis Cleyn, assisted by Wenceslas Hollar, a Czech artist who was already famous in 1651 and who is well known today for his etchings of 17th-century London. Chances are if you’ve seen an image of London in the 17th-century, it was made by our good pal Hollar. In 1665, Ogilby published a second edition of Aesop’s Fables, a luxury folio illustrated by Hollar and Dutch artist Dirk ‘Rodrigo’ Stoop. Everyone’s name is just delightful. Forever and always thinking about the name Rodrigo Stoop. 

In this edition Ogilby added one new fable called ‘Of the Frogs Fearing the Sun Would Marry’. Ogilby’s folio was published in the middle of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, and this fable specifically is very obviously anti-Dutch satire. In the fable, some frogs receive news that the sun is going to marry. That news scares them because one sun in the sky is enough to dry up their ponds, and the addition of the sun babies would just make this problem worse. The god Neptune assures the frogs that the sun will not marry, but warns them that there’s a new sun who even he is powerless against. For 17th-century readers, it would’ve been obvious that this new sun was England. Love to personify England as the sun, yes. In summary, Ogilby’s fable celebrates newfound power with the crowning of Charles II, while warning the Dutch (and French) about their future prospects. The fable became so popular that it was published as a standalone text entitled The Holland Nightingale, or, The Sweet Singers of Amsterdam, during the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars. “Of the Frogs Fearing the Sun Would Marry” inspired an outburst of frog pamphlets in England, France, and the Netherlands, in addition to serving as the catalyst for further political fables. 

The most relevant and also delightful part of this whole thing is that accompanying ‘Of the Frogs Fearing the Sun Would Marry’ is an etching by our pal Wenceslaus Hollar showing a crowd of clothed frogs stood in front of the Amsterdam Town Hall. The town hall is now the royal palace. It opened in July 1665 so was brand new when Ogilby’s second edition was published. What’s so hilarious about this image is that everything looks normal until you look really close. And then you see a straight up baby frog and a bunch of adult frogs in 17th-century hats and collars. Would very much recommend looking at the photo of it I’ve put on the sewwhat social media. It is a hilarious delight. 

 The lady frogs wear caps, veils, gowns, ruffs, and lace collars, while the dude frogs wear wide-brimmed hats, short and long coats, breeches, and, occasionally, ruffs. The orating frog, who was presumably tasked with announcing the sun’s marriage, stands at a podium above the rest of the crowd. Ogilby calls him “an old sag-bellied toad”, which, like, honestly, mood. The orating frog calls his fellow frogs “Grave Hogen Mogen, High and Mighty Frogs”. Every part of this is so weird. Can’t wait to bring the term hogen mogen into my vocabulary. The old frog man wears a ruff, which, while still sometimes worn in the mid-seventeenth century, was decidedly out of fashion. But even he, this old toad dude, a member of a previous generation, realizes the inevitability of the sun’s marriage and the havoc it will wreak on the Netherlands. England is rising from the ashes of the Civil War. What a time to be alive!!

In light of this decidedly wacky tale, could frog pouches have been a political statement? Perhaps English gals wore these frogs to indicate that the English had power over the Dutch and that, for this reason, they could have physical control over stitched interpretations of the Dutch, too. Since these pouches were filled with sweet scents, then maybe frog pouches gave their wearers and makers the power to turn the “rotten”, swampy frogs into something sweeter. Delicious. 

These are just three socially significant frog moments in the 17th century. Could one of them have prompted the making of lil itty bitty frogs? Who knows? No historic documentation about these thangs means no answers! But we can guess! And make educated, well researched proposals about what inspired the production of the pouches! Like I just did. Yeehaw.  

Okay now that we’ve covered what possibly inspired the making of these frog pals it’s time to ask -- who made and wore these bad boys? Unsurprisingly, that’s a mystery, too. They were almost definitely made by women rather than male professionals. The fact that one of the frogs was found in a girl’s embroidered cabinet implies that at least some of them were made by young, well-off girls. Maybe those girls were imitating a style worn by older women. I say that because the frog pouch found in the cabinet is really simple in comparison to other survivors. If the frog pouches are related to Queen Elizabeth I’s suitor Francis, Duke of Anjou, then it seems likely that those who wore the frogs were in Elizabeth’s court.  

But if the frog pouch trend was inspired by Ben Jonson’s masque or Ogilby’s book of fables, which were both available to the literate public, the connection to the aristocracy or courtly life is less clear. Given the relatively large number of frog pouches that survive, their excellent state of preservation, and the expense of the materials used, they were probably worn by wealthy women, and only rarely. For these delightful cuties to have survived nearly four centuries, they must have been cherished and cared for by generations, not considered everyday objects to be forgotten, discarded, or repurposed. And we love them for that!

Questions remain about exactly when and why they were made and what they were used for, but I think chances are these little hunks of joy are from the middle-ish of the 17th century, given the techniques used and their context in larger needlework trends. But that’s just a hunch and I’m sure many people would disagree with me. And if they were based off the Duke d’Anjou or Ben Jonson’s masque, they’re from decades earlier, much closer to the beginning of the 17th century. I feel more confident in my idea of what they were for than when they were made. I really think they were like pomanders, a container that holds fragrances which was often used and held to the nose in 17th-century England. I think these were the early modern version of portable air freshener. We have car fresheners shaped like trees, the early modern folks had air fresheners shaped like frogs. 

These frog pouches are some of the weirdest, most charming objects I’ve come across as I’ve delved deep into needlework over the past few years. They’re inexplicable, no matter how hard I try to explain them. They’re these small gems, these tiny artifacts of life from over 350 years ago. And they really give that current tiny purse trend a run for its money. 

And that’s that on 17th-century frog pouches. Thanks for taking the leap (hehehe) and sticking with me! Thank you for listening and if you liked it, please subscribe, rate, follow this podcast on social media, and whatever else! A longer, obviously more professional version of this episode will be a chapter in a book coming out sometime in the near-ish future. I’ll post about it on the sew what social media as soon as I know more, in case you’ve fallen in love with frog pouches and just can’t get enough.  

Thanks again for listening! Now go out and stitch some stories. Or rather stay in and socially distance and stitch some stories. Bye!!