Wrapping a handkerchief around your head
A 1773 description of an oyster seller in the London Magazine describes her as “a maſculine and robuſt wench, with a red ſpotted handkerchief wrapped round her head.”
Tying a handkerchief around your head is a particularly sensible way to keep your cap and/or hat on when the weather is particularly cold, rainy, or windy. This arrangement appears on several images of working-class women in the outdoors (as well as a few men), and would be an excellent use of a printed handkerchief or bandanna.
A handkerchief under the hat of The Curds and Whey Seller, Cheapside, London, 1725-1735
A man in the Salisbury Flying Coach has a handkerchief tied over his hat and wig in Four Times of the Day: Night by William Hogarth, 1736 (easier to see in the print)
A woman wears a handkerchief over her hat in A group of men and women loitering (figure sketch made around Edinburgh after 1745) by Paul Sandby
Kerchiefs worn over a hat or over a cap in a group of sketches of head dresses in Covent Garden by Louis Philippe Boitard, 1747
A sheer white handkerchief worn over the cap of Anne Hoare (full length seated left profile view of young girl) by William Hoare
A handkerchief under the hat of London Cries: A Milkmaid by Paul Sandby, c. 1759
Nice prussian Matches New picked pointed Matches attributed to Paul Sandby, c. 1759
A handkerchief (?) worn over the hat of a woman selling milk, and other handkerchiefs-as-headwear on women selling fish and oysters, from The Cries of Dublin by Hugh Douglas Hamilton, 1760
A man wears a handkerchief over his wig and under his hat in The Embarkation by John Collet
The fortune teller in A fortune-teller with two children by Paul Sandby, c. 1740-1765; also The Country Maids Fortune Told, 1772
The fishwife (left) in The Female Orators, 1768
A tie-dyed bandanna worn over a hat by The Letter Woman, 1769 (see also The Letters Woman by Henry Robert Morland)
A woman wears a handkerchief under her hat in Beggars on the Road to Stanmore by Johan Zoffany, c. 1769-1770
An old person (at left) in a striped handkerchief, and a dog in a spotted handkerchief (in the carriage) Scene in a London Street by John Collet, 1770
A young woman wears a red handkerchief (possibly tied over a cap) behind The Hurdy Gurdy Player by John Collet
A farm worker with a kerchief over her hair (no apparent cap) in a Farm Exterior by Pehr Hilleström
Knotted over the loose hair of the central woman in The City Chanters, 1771
There seems to be a handkerchief worn over the cap and under the hat in The Shower, 1772
A sickly woman wears a white handkerchief over her cap in The Virtuous Comforted by Sympathy, 1774
A cobbler’s wife wears a white handkerchief over her cap in The modern Beau in Distress, 1770-1775
Tied over a straw hat on the pregnant wife of The Disbanded Soldier. So shall Desert in Arms be crown’d., 1775
A white handkerchief over the cap on Study of an old lady knitting by Ozias Humphry, 1776
Wrapped loosely around the head of an infant in A Lady and Her Children Relieving a Cottager by William Redmore Bigg, 1781
Wrapped over a straw hat on The Gypsie Fortune-Teller, 1783
Wrapped over a man’s hat (right background) in A Real Scene in St. Pauls Church Yard on a Windy Day, 1783
Several enslaved men and women at The Old Plantation (Music and Dance in Beaufort County), c. 1785
Handkerchief worn over the cap of An Edinburgh Fishwife by David Allan, c. 1785
A girl in The Return From Market by Francis Wheatley, 1786
A man with a handkerchief wrapped over his hat in The Snowstorm, or Winter by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, 1786
An older woman wears a handkerchief over her cap in Johnny Going to the Fair by George Morland
An older woman at the bar wears a handkerchief over her cap in Easy Money by George Morland
A man on a ship wears a white handkerchief over his hat in The Margate Hoy by Charles Catton, Jr., 1795
An older woman in Sunday morning, a cottage family going to church by William Redmore Bigg, 1795
Men and women Returning from a Rout on a Rainy Night, 1797
Two women wearing kerchiefs around their heads and under their hats in The beauties of war!!, 1799 (“A tolerable good booty — after the battle — we’ll now smoke our pipes in comfort.”)
Jacky Frost!!, 1800; an old man wears a patterned handkerchief over his hat and tied under his chin; depending on the hand-colorist’s whims, this handkerchief may be yellow with red spots, red with yellow spots, etc.
A shepherdess wearing a kerchief over her straw hat, which in turn is worn over a white cap, in The Peasant’s Integrity, or, Lost Lamb Restored
Reading in candlelight by Pehr Hilleström, 1805
