18th Century Pudding Caps

Portraits indicate that the pudding cap was worn over a baby’s cap; a colorful silk cap sometimes appears between the white cap and the pudding cap.

While the modern costumer’s term for this style of headwear is “pudding cap,” the term “pudding” or “quilted pudding” is more common in 18th century documents, such as The Villager’s Friend and Physician (1800):

The disease which I shall next speak of, is often, in its first stage, mistaken for the effect of worms. Dropsy of the brain, or Watery Head, may be suspected when a child appears uncommonly heavy and dull, complains of pain in the head, has its sleep disturbed with alarming dreams, reluctantly moves its head from the pillow, or attends to surrounding objects; and is affected with frequent sickness and slight fever …

This complaint is frequently occasioned by the falls on the head, which children are exposed to on first going alone. Guard their heads, therefore, at this time, with the old-fashioned headdress for children, a quilted stuffed cap, or pudding.

“Quilted puddings” appear in Catherine Rathell’s advertisements in the Virginia Gazette in the early 1770s, among “a large Assortment of Millinery and Jewellery” imported from London to be sold at her shop in Williamsburg.

Additional Resources

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Pilgrim John Howland Society: Hey Pudding Head

What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America

The Dress of Old-Time Children in Two Centuries of Costume in America, 1620-1820

Children’s Clothes

Mrs. Hancock’s Pudding Cap, Part One and Part Two

Eighteenth-Century Clothing at Williamsburg

Tidings from the Eighteenth Century

Extant pudding caps

Rijksmuseum BK-NM-3009, a pudding cap in silk velvet

Colonial Williamsburg 1971-1391, a child’s padded cap or pudding in rust-colored silk velvet and silver metallic fabric, probably made in Italy c. 1680-1730

Pudding cap made for a doll, 18th century; “This pudding is constructed of bright red leather padded and quilted into thick bands that circumscribe the head and bands that meet at the top; the edges are bound in red silk with a red silk tie at the crown; it is lined in beige leather.”

Colonial Williamsburg 1971-1383,1-2, France, c. 1730-1750

Child’s silk velvet pudding, France

Historisches Museum Basel 1915.37, goat leather with silk ribbon, probably Basel

MFA 38.1324, France, damask padded cap

Met C.I.39.54.4, Switzerland

Manchester 1980.198/2, c. 1750-1770; “Very badly degraded pale blue figured silk with silver thread embroidery and silver lace.
Cap on foundation of soft thick paper pleated and tacked with large stitches into shape. Front edge of cap is wired to shape. Cap is lined with a coarsely woven brushed cotton. Cap is covered with blue silk (very degraded) outlined in bobbin lace. Each section has silver embroidery in design of palmettes and foliage, with some silver spangles. Silver embroidery is padded with vellum.
Circlet headband, padded with soft yellowish fibres, lined with ivory silk over a paper foundation. Outside of band covered with silk damask, with silver thread floral embroidery fore and aft. Ear pieces have silver embroidery and unravelled silver lace. Each side has cut end of ivory silk ribbon, presumably a chin tie.”

Kerry Taylor 17 Jun 2025, Lot 518, “A rare infant’s pudding cap, second half of the 18th century of pale green silk, the headband formed from quill-like pleats of spotted silk with points to front and back, with triangular pleated side panels, edged in silver strip bobbin lace, with four attached pale green silk ribbons that form a rosette-like bow to the crown, lined in natural linen, and edged in pale green silk ribbon”

MFA 43.1839, child’s head protector in lace and blue silk

GNM T2833, silk with metal thread and linen lining, reinforced with paper, c. 1770

Colonial Williamsburg 1952-55, England, c. 1770-1785; “Quilted cotton velvet bound with silk ribbon, horsehair stuffing, leather lining”

V&A B.81-1995, Britain, c. 1775-1800; “The ‘pudding’ consists of a sausage-like horseshoe-shaped roll of glazed pink cotton, which has a padded white linen inner stiffened with wire and card, and a black petersham ribbon tying string at each end. Four lightly padded triangular flaps of self fabric, stiffened with card, are attached to the roll at regular intervals (partly covering the crown of the head), two of them fastening together over the head with tying strings of broad black silk ribbon. The edges of the triangular flaps and the top seam-line of the roll are all edged with narrow black velvet ribbon.”

Bonhams 1 Jul 2015, Lot 584, a late 18th century pudding cap “of ribbed brown leather, featuring a thick padded band, with four lobed padded tabs to secure at the top, all trimmed with red braid and lined with green cotton”

Met 2009.300.1453, 1st quarter of the 19th century