3-008-676 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The International Exhibition - "Girl of the Parish of Rattvik, in Decarlia, by the Fireside", by Johan Frederick Hockert, 1862. Engraving of a painting. 'The costumes...[of] Dalecarlia, properly Dalarne (the valley country), a former "province" of Sweden...are quaintly picturesque...A great quantity of clothes is put on here to keep the cold out, as in some warn latitudes almost as much is worn to keep the heat out. This young girl, though enveloped in a rough sheepskin jacket (with the wool inside), is not insensible to the fascinations of finery, judging by her very richly-embroidered work-bag or reticule, the showy worsted balls hanging from her droll-looking headdress, and her striped petticoat. The thick shoes, with their high heels and iron toe-pieces and nails, are, we suppose, a necessary protection on the snowy and frozen ground...The "fireplace''...is very unlike anything we call by that pleasant name. It is a great cavity, with iron supports, excavated at some distance from the ground out of the projecting angle of a wall. The box is, we presume, a saltbox, placed in readiness to flavour the broth'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.