Spring Cleaning

Hi everyone,

Jane in Berkshire here.

I hope you all had a nice Easter.

For the theme Spring cleaning, I turned to that great English tome Mrs Beeton 's Book of Household Management, which was published in 1861 and was very popular for giving advice about cookery and household tasks. Of course, at the time it was written, it would have been the housemaids who did the housework!

This is an excerpt from the section on domestic servants:-

DUTIES OF THE HOUSEMAID.

2292. “Cleanliness is next to godliness,” saith the proverb, and “order” is in the next degree; the housemaid, then, may be said to be the handmaiden to two of the most prominent virtues. Her duties are very numerous, and many of the comforts of the family depend on their performance; but they are simple and easy to a person naturally clean and orderly, and desirous of giving satisfaction.

For my tags I took the illustrations from Duties of the Housemaid,

and reproduced them with a mixture of tracing and drawing.

The tags are taken from my teenager's shopping spree! I gave them a light coating of gesso, then collaged the drawings, which are done on brown craft paper, and added the description.

Housemaid's brushes

Staircase broom and Crumb brush

Long-hair broom

Gaufering irons and box iron