Memory's Daughters: The Material Culture of Remembrance in Eighteenth-Century America 9781501729935

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Among

Her Souvenirs

with it." 27 Virtually indistinguishable, the self and object merge to renew a unified identity and a continuous narrative of the past in old age. But as experience is increasingly mediated and abstracted through objects, the lived relation of the body to the material world is substituted with "a nostalgic myth of contact and presence ." At once " sadness without an object" and "the desire for desire," nostalgia is the bittersweet sense of separation from an irrecoverable past. With the characteristic touch of utopianism coloring nostalgic reminiscence, Logan · treasured those objects that brought back happier moments. In her persistent desire to recover the past, nost algia was the most potent form of reminiscence. The nostalgic myth of contact and presence returns us to Logan's mutilated portrait and our impossible desire for the original. Doubly removed from its sitter and its nascent context, the existing copy can never adequately embody the memory traces of Peale's work or its proximity to Logan herself. It can only invite our reminiscence at a remove. Looking at the portr ait, we experience a kind of nostalgic distance from an object that requires what I call "collective reminiscence" to bridge the gap. "If we go outside the self, this is not to become fused with the objects but rather to look at them from the point of view of others," writes the theorist Maurice Halbw achs; "there are no recollections which can be said to be prior interior, that is, which can be preserved only within individual memory." 28 The requisite introspection and retirement of the old thus ironically bring them in contact with others . Painted for po sterity, Logan 's portrait anticipated and implicated future viewers in her memory's preservation. The historical framework of collective reminiscence not only pacifies nostalgic longing but also requires an ethical relationship between the object and its respective viewers: we must imagine ourselves in the position of others, approximating their response had they been in our position. 29 Because reminiscence can only resonate rather than entirely recover a nowdistant past, it is always incomplete . But using an ethic of collective presence and contact, people can synthesize their intimate remembrances of a memory object or its all-but-forgotten referent into a more complete narrative. Though Maria Dickinson Logan attempted such an ethical stance by putting herself in her relative's place before destroying the portrait, she tragically replaced the shared , perhaps even transcendent, aesthetics of nostalgia with unsympathetic literalism. Had she read Logan's words and image in their appropriate context, she would have treasured the portrait as we do. Given the destruction of Deborah Logan's portrait and our nostalgia aroused by its copy, this chapter focuses on the ultimate failure of physiognomy to permanently preserve either the face or the memories reflected in the countenance . Arguing instead for the necessity of mnemonic objects · 13 5 ·

· Part II. Collective

Reminiscence

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and collective reminiscence to arrest the progressive dementia that accompanies aging, I show how Logan and her coterie adopt preservation methods that go beneath the skin's surface to the seat of memory itself. Despite the Cartesian accentuation of the face at the expense of the aging body, and despite the preponderance of late-eighteenth-century literature promoting retirement in old age, I demonstrate how the skin-as the organ of touch invokes a specifically "embodied reminiscence ." The objects intended to beautify the face and forestall 'the effects of aging, moreover, are the very artifacts of collective memory, or reminiscentia.Looking specifically at the hand mirror, folding fan, portrait miniature, and silhouette (as well as the poetic epistles that characteristically accompany them), I contend that these objects not only represent , reflect, or protect the face but ultimately preserve what the face cannot. Much like Freud's metonymic fetish, whereby a part of the body is substituted for the whole (i.e., face for the body) or an object is substituted for the part (i.e., mirror, fan, miniature, or silhouette for the face), until finally the whole body can become an object substituting for the whole, such reminiscentiawere external metonyms for the face and mind. "There is a great convenience in having something of the kind to refer to," admits Logan, for in "the association of ideas one thing recovers another, and so I go on." 30

THE

TOILETTE:

PRESERVING

HER

FACE

Made in 1783 by the Philadelphia cabinetmaker Thomas Tufft, Deborah Logan's dressing table has five lipped drawers, three in a row above two on either side of the curved skirt, which provided storage spaces for treasured reminiscentia(see figure 3.2). 31 Like the rooms of a Georgian house or the hidden compartments in a writing desk, the toilette table was a cabinet for memory, ritualistically prompting a life review. Logan would take out the mnemonic tokens from time to time, sharing them with her intimates and musing: "I love to look upon objects that have met their eyes who are gone, the characters endeared to me by reading their integrity and value in the unintentional Records of themselves which they leave behind ." 32 Then, looking in the mirror for an illusory record of herself, she would appreciate the sentimental rather than the practical value of her toilette in old age, "for I have long ago given up the fruitless task of endeavouring by its act to make an old woman look like a young one ." 33 Preserving her memory along with her face, the toilette signified the past. On the dressing table's surface, Logan displayed the requisite dressing box, looking glass, perfume bottles, and cosmetic boxes. 34 She may have acquired a decorative patchbox filled with silk, velvet, cloth, or paper patches · 136 ·

Among

H er Souvenirs

3 .2 . D eborah Logan 's dressing table . Court esy of the Hi sto rical Society of Penn sylvania (X- 59).

to appl y over blemi sh es.35 Snuffboxes were also popul ar collectibles, as h er diar y reco rds: "a gold snuff box with ex qui site paint ed portraits of M ari a Louisa, the king of Rome, and N apol eo n hims elf, the first two removed with a spring to discover the latter. The owner revers that it was th e original box made by N apol eans dire ctions and th e miniatures paint ed by Isabey." Beside th e snuffbox lay a beautiful fan with an elabor ately ornam en ted leaf. " I had myself a fan belon ging to one of my Aunt s which had on it th e first division of Poland figured by a Large Plum Cake," writes Logan: "T h e monar chs of Europe sat at the table among whom was Catherine of Ru ssia, and the Empr ess-Qu een M ari a Theresa, and Frederic of Pru ssia, dividin g it with his sword." Finally, Logan kept th ese relics in sp ecial box es, which she cove red w ith calico and scraps of engraving s, "more to pr eserve th em , th an as appr opriate orn amen ts (they are quite decollete)."36Together th ese items pr esen t both th e decora tive and mn emonic arts of a woman's toilette. 37 Perhaps she inh er ited the lovely, j apanned dressing box descended · 137 ·

. Part II. Collective

R eminisc ence ·

3.3. On display at Stenton is a japanned dressing bo x (c. r7ro -30) that probably resemble s the one that Jame s Logan mentioned in his records for 1712. Courtesy of The National Society of The Colonia l Dames of America in th e Conrn1onwealth of Pennsylvania at STENTON, Philadelphia.

through the Logan family, ordered by her father-in-law in 1712 (see figure 3 .3). Such an ornamental box materializes the peculiar link connecting dressing furniture, cosmetics, and the preserving art of japanning. An occidental imitation of Asian lacquer work, japanning was a type of varnish and surface decoration. 38 More notably, japanning was both the craft of professional cabinetmakers and the polite art of young women . Furniture-building manuals explained the relat ively simple process in detail: the practitioner first coats the surface of wood with varnish; after it sufficiently dries, he applies animal, figural, or floral motifs, which are built up on the wood with gesso (a mixture of chalk, whiting, glue, and water that acts as a primer); finally, gilding or silvering provides the finishing touch . Explicitly coupling varnishing with cosmetics, handbooks for the female arts included almost · I

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Among

H er Souvenirs

identi cal direction s for furnitur e and facial "v arni shes." 39 A wom an could learn from one small book th e analogou s ar_ts of pr eservation ; one mi ght compar e, for exampl e, th e follow ing recipe s in The Young Ladies School of A rts and The Toilet efFlora: To M ake Varnish for Oil Paintings Acco rding to th e number of your picture s, take th e w hit es of th e sam e number of eggs; and to each pictur e take th e bigne ss of a hazelnut of w hite sugar candy dissolved, and mix it w ith a tea- spoo nful of br andy; beat th e whit es of your eggs to a froth ; th en let it settl e; take th e clear, put to your brandy and sugar, and varni sh over your pi ctures with it : this is mu ch better th an any other varni sh .40 An Admirable Varni sh for th e Skin Take equal parts of Lemon Jui ce, and Whit es of new Laid Eggs, beat them well tog eth er in a glazed earthen pan, whi ch put on a slow fire, an d keep th e mixtur e con stantly stirrin g with a wood en spatula , till it has acquir ed th e consist ence of soft butt er. Keep it for use, and at th e tim e of appl yin g it, add a few drops of any Essenc e you like best. Befo re th e face is rubbed with thi s varnish, it will be prop er to wash with th e distilled Water of ric e.4 1 Th ese typi cal and age- old combin ations of eggs, br andy, and lem on juic e created a translu cent , resinou s glaze th at pre serv es th e surfac e of th e face and deco rative obj ects alike, pro vidin g a lasting shin e and imp enetrable seal. Thou gh many co nsidered th e eight eenth centur y "par ex cellence th e age of pow der and paint ," face varni sh-p arti cularly whit e cerule an paint - had its criti cs by the centur y's end , as figur e 3 .4 illustrates. One detractor in 1777 w rit es, " Fro m each new acqu aint ance, she still exac ts garni sh ; I Like iv'ry h er teeth, and h er cheeks are like-v arni sh ," an d another co mpl ains in r8 II : " N othing but selfish vanity, and falsehood of m ind , could prevail on a wom an to enamel her skin w ith w hit e paint s, to lacker her lips w ith vermillion ." M ental falsehoo d, in turn , expr esses fiction al beauty, for " The skin's power efexpression, wo uld be entir ely lost, wer e I to tolerate th at fictitious , that dead beauty whi ch is co mpo sed of white paint s and enam elling." 42 Distin gui sh ed from "cos m etics" by th e nin eteenth centur y, lead- and m ercur ybased "paint ," like varn ish , had its indu stri al uses and personal dangers. As Jam es Stewa rt explains in Plocacosmos (1782): "Ce ru se is whit e calk of lead, used in painting and cosm etics, m ade by calcinin g th at me tal in th e vapor of vin egar. ... Ceru se makes a be autiful white colour and is much used by the paint ers both in oil and water colour s. It m akes th e prin cipal in gredient in th e fo cuses used by ladies for th e co mpl exion. Taken inwardl y it is a clan· 139 ·

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