Tradesmen’s button-top aprons in the 18th century

This focuses on a style of apron worn by men in the 18th century; it has a buttonhole at the top to attach to a button on the waistcoat or jacket. This style of apron generally ties around the waist as well.

Hudibras’s first adventure and Hudibras vanquish’d by Trulla by William Hogarth, 1726

He comes to the possession of his fathers estate, c. 1735

The House of Cards by Jean Siméon Chardin, c. 1737

To the Right Honble the Marquis of Carnarvon, 1738; the description notes that this is a masonic apron

The Itinerant Handy-Craftsman or Caleb turn’d Tinker by Hubert François Gravelot, 1740

Figure sketches by Paul Sandby

Sketch of a man carrying three-legged stools by Paul Sandby

The Two Shilling Butcher, 1747

Horse Fair on Bruntsfield Links, Edinburgh by Paul Sandby, 1750

Beer Street by William Hogarth, 1751

Interior of an inn with a musician

Printing from engraved copper plates, spirit distillation, etc., Diderot’s Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 1763

James Woodhouse, shoemaker and poet, 1765

A cobbler in The Enraged Cuckold, c. 1766-1784

The Henry VIII Gateway from within the Lower Ward by Paul Sandby, c. 1767 (see also Henry VIII Gate, Windsor Castle)

A man blacking a shoe, 1768

Two smiths in The Newsmongers, 1769

The Modern Beau in Distress, c. 1770-1775

Saint Monday in the Afternoon, or All Nine and Swallow the Bowl, 1770s

The blacksmith lets his iron grow cold attending to the taylor's news, 1772

John Cuff by Johan Joseph Zoffany, 1772

A ladies maid purchasing a leek by James Caldwell, 1772

The Unfortunate Beau, 1772

A Militia Meeting, 1773