18th Century Bib-Aprons

English and Anglo-American women in the 18th century associated wearing a bib and apron (what some reenactors call a “pinner apron”) with youth, or as a symbol of immaturity or girlhood:

“We had ſeveral innocent ſtories that happen’d in bib and apron time; and I being a ſort of a wagg, adviſed the ladies to make haſt and marry, in order to ſupply their old maſter with a great many ſcholars.”
— Letters Sent to the Tatler and Spectator, 1725
“And then to have the full pleaſure of mortifying Mrs. Conqueſt too, that’s always holding her noſe over me, as if I was not fit to be out of my bib and apron.”
— The Lady’s Last Stake, 1780
“I will hope, Madam, that you are above ſuch Weakneſſes, which a Miſs in her Bib and Apron might bluſh for.”
— The Virgin’s Nosegay, 1744
“LORD what’s come to my Mother!
That ev’ry Day more than other,
My true Age ſhe would ſmother,
And ſays I’m not in my Teens.
Tho’ my Sampler I have ſown through,
My Bib and Apron outgrown too.”
— Song 340 in The Thrush, 1749
“Enter Jenny in a bib and apron, with a pricked ſong in one hand, and a large piece of bread and butter in the other … You — my mother will bring me a tall huge huſband home next week; and methinks I long for a tall huge huſband; and I am to leave off my bib and apron too.”
— The Boarding School, 1788

Grown women elsewhere in Europe also wore bibbed aprons, and there are examples of black silk aprons worn both in England and in Europe.

Bib-aprons for girls and young women

Colonial Williamsburg 1991-526, whitework apron with bib, made in England c. 1720

Group portrait, probably of the Raikes family by Gawen Hamilton, c. 1730-1732

The young schoolmistress by Chardin, c. 1735-1736

Frances Rix, c. 1735-1737

A school of girls, 1739

Portrait of a young girl

A young girl wearing a cap, seated half-length, in a chair

Portrait of a little girl holding a floral garland

Girl with racket and shuttlecock by Chardin, c. 1740

The hard-working mother by Chardin, 1740

Girl with racket and shuttlecock by Chardin, c. 1740

The little schoolmistress by Chardin, after 1740

Colonel Charles Ingram with His Children by Philippe Mercier, 1741

Children in an interior by Arthur Devis, c. 1743

Children at play by Joseph Francis Nollekens, 1745

Children at play, probably the artist’s son Jacobus and daughter Maria Joanna Sophia by Joseph Francis Nollekens, 1745

An unknown man with his daughter by Arthur Devis, c. 1746-1748

Meriel Legh and Dorothea Byrne, c. 1750

Portrait of a young girl, traditionally identified as Jane Brooke

The Grymes Children, c. 1750-1755

Young knitter asleep by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, c. 1759

A young woman painting by Paul Sandby, c. 1760-1770

Mr. and Mrs. Dalton and their niece Mary de Heulle by Johan Zoffany, c. 1765-1768

Madame la présidente de Lamoignon et ses enfants by Louis Carrogis Carmontelle, 1766

A young girl, standing by Paul Sandby, c. 1760-1780

A girl and boy, standing by Paul Sandby, c. 1760-1780

The young servant

The reading lesson by Nicholas-Bernard Lépicié, c. 1774–1779

A family group in a landscape by Francis Wheatley, c. 1775

The Unwilling Bridegroom, or Forc’d Meat will never digest, 1778

Palemon and Lavinia, 1782

Embroidering girl by Jean-Étienne Liotard

Madame Liotard and her daughter by Jean-Étienne Liotard

Young girl singing into a mirror by Jean-Étienne Liotard

Apron, No. 4, No. 5, and No. 6, in the Cloathing for Girls section of Instructions for Cutting Out Apparel for the Poor, 1789

The young dreamer by Jean-François Gilles Colson

Portrait of a girl (said to be Miss Collingwood) by George Romney

Annette de Fourqueux by Louis Carrogis Carmontelle

The Benevolent Cottager

English maidservants wearing bibbed aprons

A City Shower by Edward Penny, c. 1764

The Love Letter

A laundress in Camp in Hyde Park, London, 1785

“On the following day Eliza’s filthy rags were all taken off, and ſhe was dreſſed in a tidy brown ſtuff gown, a nice clean round-eared cap, and a little coloured bib and apron; and ſhe was ordered, if any perſon aſked her name, to ſay it was Biddy Bullen, and that ſhe was niece to the woman who employed her.” Tales of the hermitage, 1798

Mrs Maltby by Isaac Robert Cruikshank

Mrs. Maltby

Bib-aprons for adult women elsewhere in Europe

The general sense that bibbed aprons were restricted to the very young seems to have been limited to England (and English colonies); other adult European women wore this style of apron more often.

These exist as finer aprons for wealthy women:

There are also extant cotton-print bib-aprons with floral patterns. These resemble the floral-patterned bib-aprons in other illustrations of working-class women, such as the maid in the Concert in an Interior or #15 & #21 in a collection of watercolors c. 1775.

    Nationalmuseum IN-8676, a cotton apron printed with a red pattern, c. 1740-1760

    Colonial Williamsburg 1952-67, floral block-printed cotton with the addition of pencil blue, probably France, c. 1770-1785; “The block printed fabric of this apron is of medium quality, and would have been affordable by women of the middling sorts. Aprons were not just for cleanliness and protection while working. Many eighteenth-century aprons were fashionable accessories, made of fine cotton or silk and decorated with needlework or printing. Because of its washable but decorative fabric, this apron probably was both accessory and protection. The bib was pinned in place to the wearer’s gown using straight pins, as safety pins were not invented until the nineteenth century.”

    Colonial Williamsburg 1971-1543, block-printed cotton, France, c. 1780. “Red and blue blockprinted cotton with two repeating chinoiserie scenes between wavy stripes with red branches intertwining.”

Bib-aprons also appear in illustrations and paintings of working-class women:

Black silk bib-aprons

Black silk aprons even appear on well-to-do girls and adult women, both in England and elsewhere in Europe. The Margaret Hunter Millinery Shop at Colonial Williamsburg re-created this style; see Useful Yet Elegant: Black Silk Aprons, c.1770. (Mara adjusts her hat shows another re-creation of this style.)

These are also referenced in Anna Green Winslow’s diary (January 4 & 17 in 1772) and in a letter that Alice Lee Shippen sent to her daughter Nancy on November 8, 1777.

Thomas and Elizabeth Sandby