Five years into his six-year exile on St. Helena, Napoleon was pale, tired-looking, and fat, though his face showed no fatigue or illness. Still, after a ten-mile journey on horseback (on hilly terrain), he uncharacteristically stopped for a social visit at Mount...
Writing in 1804, Longchamps suggests that sharing the bill at dinner, dîner en manière de pique-nique was stylish in the 1740s. Perhaps, but it was an old memory, and by then, dining en pique-nique was common. Longchamps explains that while in the employ of Emilie du...
De Kock sometimes styled the French Dickens, is known for his broad portrayals of the Parisian working-class society, affairs, cabarets, and other entertainment. In Monsieur Dupont, the entertainment spotlighted is a tumultuous picnic at Romainville, still a popular...
While hunting, his favorite sport, Brillat-Savarin enjoyed the haltes de chasse or midday luncheon. Brillat-Savarin knew first-hand the pleasures of dining in the field and expected all food and wines to be carried or delivered to a place designated explicitly....
Five couples picnicking on the grass are upset by a swarm of bees. Their table is in disarray as people run helter-skelter; hats fly, tempers flare, and a dog barks. A man pours water on a fainting woman that misses her mouth but not her breasts. Round up the usual...
Barbauld’s etiquette book A Legacy for Young Ladies Consisting of Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose and Verse was an important social resource. Like Miss Manners or Emily Post, Barbauld is sure that what she has to say is correct. Barbauld’s explanation of “pic nic” then...
Another picnic ruined, etc., etc. See George Cruikshank. The Gipseying Party Alarm’d at the Uninvited Guest (1827), engraving. London: John Fairburn, 1827....
Child’s The Frugal Housewife is among the most popular American cookery and domestic manuals but has no specific recommendations for picnics. The 1830 edition does have a recipe for buffalo’s tongue; “Buffalo’s tongue should soak a day and a...
Bennett added picnickers to his Niagara Falls landscape to make the vastness of the falls seem more accessible. He placed a group of picnickers on Goat Island in the left foreground and positioned the falls beyond them. The inclusion of picnickers was pleasing and...
Birch’s View of the Delaware is a landscape embellished with a picnic party just arriving by boat to a destination on the shore near Philadelphia. See Thomas Birch. View of the Delaware near Philadelphia (1831), oil on canvas. The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington,...
