The history of the black patch

Detail from Woman at her Toilette by Francois Boucher, 1769
The finishing touches of a fashionable makeup.

Others make Posies of her Cheeks,
Where Red and Whitest Colours mix;
In which the Lilly, and the Rose,
For Indian Lake, and Ceruse goes.

The Sun, and Moon, by her bright Eyes

 Eclips'd, and darken'd in the Skies,
Are but black Patches, that she wears, /Samuel Butler

 

The black patch. Or the the mouche, the court plaister or beauty spot. It has many names and, somewhat confusingly, could be worn for more than one reason as well. To disguise scars and pimples or to enhance beauty? For medical reasons or to make a statement? Or, perhaps all four of them at the same time. I hope this post will shed some light on this small, but for two centuries very visible, beauty device.

 

This post has been very long in coming. I started to research. And then I researched some more. And I found more and more pictures and more of more to read. It started to feel like an over pretentious post and I went into an acute writing block. But here it is, finally, a post on the little black patch. Most of the pictures in this post are all details from larger works. I have collected the whole painting/engraving in a Pinterest album. There are also pictures there that didn’t make it to this article at all. All sources are listed at the end of the post.

 

A new beauty fashion

Les Mouches, 1640s

 

That the ladies would, of consequence, use every art to imitate a beauty so highly prized, is extremely natural: and hence, perhaps, arose the fashion of substituting imprinted marks, or patches of black silk, to counterfeit nature. /Edmund Burke

 

Evidently the Romans wore patches, but it was in the late 16^th century the fashion hit Europe and stayed firmly in fashion for more than 200 years. The literary and pictorial evidence that I have seen shows that it was used in France, England, Russia, Italy, Spain, Holland, USA and Sweden, which, considering the geographical spread, indicates that it was used all over the Western civilisation. It seems that it was first worn to soothe toothache, a large round patch were worn at the temple to relieve pain. The relief must have been purely psychological, but perhaps it is not so far-fetched to imagine someone noticing how becoming a black spot in the face could be.



Detail from A Woman peeling Apples
by Pieter de Hooch, ca. 1663
Such domestic lady is probably wearing
a pacth to relieve a toothache.

In a time when pale skin was desired, the contrast between white skin and black patch made the skin look even whiter. But a patch can also hide imperfections and if we today may have a pimple to worry over, there were far nastier reasons for bad skin a couple of hundreds years ago. Smallpox could ruin a complexion completely and in the 16^th century syphilis was established in Europe and could leave far worse marks on the skin.



Detail from Garden Party on the Terrace of a Country Home,
 unknown artist, 1720-1730

 

There were more romantic explanations for the origins of patch wearing. Both Venus and Helena were attributed to having a mole enhancing their beauty. There is also a story on how Cupid swathed a fly on his mother’s cheek and realizing the effect was so becoming that he at once cut out several patches and applied on her. In Antoine Le Camus Abdeker: Or the Art of Preserving Beauty, a book that is about two thirds  a romance and one third beauty book, a fly lands on the fair Fatima’s cheek just when Abdeker has finished painting her skin white. And, as Cupid, Abdeker at once cuts out several patches and Fatima names their placement after the effect they produced.

 

Other explanations, less fanciful but not true nevertheless, was that the fashion had originated in the Orient. With that also the implication that the Western culture was so much better for not inventing such things, evidently adopting fashion were much better than inventing…
 

The Princess Henrietta is very pretty, but much below my expectation: and her dressing of herself with her hair frizzed short up to her ears, did make her seem so much the less to me. But my wife standing near her with two or three black patches on, and well dressed, did seem to me much handsomer than she. /Samuel Pepys
 

The Macaroni,a real character at the late Masquerade by Phillip Dawe, 1773
Definitely overdone in all aspects.
 

Even if the 18^th century is forever connected with the fashion of patching, it was really the 17^th century which was the grand age of the mouche.  At first it was a fashion for the upper classes, but it trickled quite quickly down the social ladder and became popular within all classes. At first finer ladies wore several patches at once while ladies of more humble circumstances wore one or two. However, by the end of the century the role had been reversed and it was considered bon ton to wear few patches and very vulgar to overdo it.


The enthusiasm for patches knew no criticism, even if critical voices could be found in abundance. The beautiful Hortence Mancini, for example, was told by her husband that he wouldn’t talk to her if she didn’t remove her patches She refused, telling him that she didn’t believe God would be offended if she wore them. She won; eventually he did speak to her again. It was a frivolous fashion though and Lady Castlemaine, at the time the main mistress of Charles II, declared that when in mourning, no patches was to be worn at court.

Detail from The Fair Nun Unmasked by Henry Morland ca. 1769

The Use of Patches is not unknown to the French Ladies but she that wears them must be young and handsome. In England, young, old,handsome, ugly, all are bepatch'd 'till, they are Bed-rid. I have often counted fifteen Patches, or more, upon the swarthy wrinkled Phiz of an old Hag threescore and ten, and upwards./ Henri Misson

 

In the 18^th century the use of patches was an established fashion. There were efforts to curb the trend, like in Zwickau, where patches were prohibited in 1705, but apparently to no avail, the patch remained popular. Regardless of reason to wear patches it was generally thought to be sexually attractive and making the wearer look younger, as this little poem, Phillis Age illustrates:
 

 

How old may Phillis be, you ask,
Whose beauty thus all hearts engages?

To answer is no easy task,
For she has really two ages.

Stiff in brocade, and pinch'd in stays,

Her patches, paint, and jewels on, All day let Envy view her face,

And Phillis is but twenty-one.

Paint, patches, jewels, laid aside,

At night, astronomers agree, The ev'ning has the day bely'd,

And Phillis, is some fortyTthree, /Matthew Prior

Detail from La Folie Pare La Decrepitude Des Ajustements De La Jeunesse
by Charles-Antoine Coypel

 

How to wear it



Detail from The Morning or Lady at her Toilet,
engraving after Francois Boucher, mid-18th century

You only want seven or eight patches: They are to women what shades are to pictures, or stars over the face of night; a beauty’s no more compleat without ‘em than a beau without powder. / Peter Anthony Motteux

 


The application of patches was an art in itself. It was not just a matter of choosing the right shape and number; they also needed to be applied where they made the best effect.  To wear a series of half-moons radiating out from the corner of the eye in increasing sizes were thought to enlarge the eye and add to its luster. Two stars at the corner of the mouth heightened its charm and to wear one on the cheek suggested a dimple that might not be there.

The painter William Hogarth says in his The analysis of beauty that when applying patches one should take care to not wear patches of the same size or symmetrically, and never one in the middle of a feature, unless, of course, one really needs to hide something there. Sentiments echoed in this rather condescending letter:



Detail from A Woman with beauty spots, Venice, Italy

MADAM, let me beg of you to take off the Patches at the lower End of your Left Cheek, and I will allow Two more under your Left Eye, which will contribute more to the Symmetry of your Face; ex'cept you would please to remove the Ten Black Atoms on your Ladyship's Chin, and wear one large 'Patch instead of them. If so, you may properly enough retain the Three Patches above mentioned/ Isaac Bickerstaff

 

The language of patches

 



Astrology face, unknown origin

If you read up on patches, then you can be almost certain that the language of patches will be mentioned. In the 17^th century different parts of the face was attributed to different parts of the Zodiac, and the signs, in turn had their own characteristic and moods.

 

By the 18^th century this had evolved into a language where both shape and placement held a meaning, though that meaning seemed to vary a bit as well. Here is one version:

 
Near the lip- coquette

Round or heart shaped patch at the temple- assassin

Heart on left cheek- engaged

Heart on right cheek- married

Round at the corner of the eye- la passion

Middle of forehead- la majestueuse

Middle of the cheek- la galante

On the nose (but never at the tip) l’impudent or l’effronté

On the nasolobial fold- l’enjouée

Near the mouth or on the chin- la silencieuse

 

As ladies sometime actually did hide imperfections, a patch used for that purpose was called voleuse la receleuse.

 

Detail from Doña María, Marquesa de Santa Fe de Guardiola
 by Miguel Cabrera

In England patches could be used to show political inclination with ladies wearing patches on either left or right side of the face to show sympathy with either Wigs or Tories. If one were neutral or hadn’t formed an opinion, a lady could patch as she pleased. There are records on how distressing a very political lady found it when she got a pimple on the wrong side of the face and needed to hide it. Another was unfortunate in having a natural mole that made people assume wrongly of her opinions.

 

Patch making

 

Nor your black patches, you wear variously, Some cut like stars, some in half-moons, some lozenges, /Francis Beaumont

 

Snuffbox, ca. 1760-1765

Patches, which seem to have been invariably black, were cut out from silk taffeta velvet or even paper. The back was prepared with some kind of adhesive like isinglass, gum mastic or gum arabicum. Or you just plain licked them and hoped for the best. The making of patches became a profession in itself, patch makers, who needed steady hands and sharp scissors to excel in their profession. Material, adhesive and the cutting skills could differ so much that patches could be bought in several qualities, with a price that differed accordingly.

 

The original shape seems to have been a round, but eventually half moons, stars, hearts, lozenges, suns, doves, cupids and silhouettes of friends and family could be found. In the 18^th century a marquise was reported to wear 16 patches in her face, one of a tree with two lovebirds in.




Patch box, 1749-1754
A patch box with patches.

The size of the patch mattered as well. Large, lozenges shaped ones, court plasters, were meant to be worn at balls, and were their size made sure that they were visible even in a vast ball room. By the end of the 18^th century large patches with a small brilliant in the middle could be purchased.

Patches were best stored in small boxes and of course and lidded box would do, but there were special patch boxes available. They had a hinged lid with a small mirror inside to make it easy to carry it around and re-apply a fallen patch. These boxes could be made in all sorts of materials and were often very fanciful. Madame Pompadour, it is said, had a patch box in the shape of a swan.

Men with patches

 



Thought to be Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton,
 unknown artist, 1594
The oldest portrait of a person wearing a patch that I have seen.

Up pretty well again, but my mouth very scabby, my cold being going away, so that I was forced to wear a great black patch, but that would not do much good, but it happens we did not go to the Duke to-day, and so I staid at home busy all the morning. /Samuel Pepys



Patching was not just for women. From the onset it was used by men, though they used them more seldom and not in such large numbers. In 1649 it was noted that even the English clergy wore patches on occasion. Soldiers who had received face wounds could wear patches to hide the scar and perhaps that inspired other men to mimic that in the hopes of being thought brave or soldierly. Never mentioned in any of the texts I have read, but something I have wonder about, is that a patch must have been an excellent way to hide shaving mishaps. Much more fetching than a small piece of toilet paper!

Portrait of a young man with a beauty spot on his cheek
by Daniel Dumoustirer, 1632/33

In the late 16^th and during the 17^th century men with patches may not have been as common as women, but they were not particularly ridiculed for wearing it.  Two of the earliest portraits of people wearing patches are just of men who look at us with a calm and secure gaze. Even in caricatures the man wearing patches look like the 17^th century version of a manly man.  In the 18^th century the view shifted and men who wore patches were ridiculed both in literature and caricatures. The man wearing patches is in the 18^th century the aging beau, the macaroni, the dance master or the hairdresser. A man that other men can find a bit silly and not very serious.

Detail from The Old Beau in Ecstasy by J. Dixon, 1773

Patches and paintings

Madame de Pompadour as a Shepherdess
by Maurice Quentinde la Tour

On a very homely Lady, that patch'd much.

YOUR homely face, Flippant*, you disguise
With patches, numerous as Argus' eyes:
I own that patching's requisite for you,
For more we're pleas'd, if less your face we view:
Yet I advise, if my advice you'd ask,
Wear but one patch; but be that patch a mask./Ralph Griffiths



Detail from Portrait of Grace Dalrymple Elliott
by Thomas Gainsborough ca. 1778

When one consider how popular it was to wear patches, it is a bit odd that they so seldom show up in art. Throughout the 17^th century patched ladies show up in fashion prints as well as in satires, but there is next to none in paintings. In the 18^th century the patch is almost always absent in fashion prints, but the caricatures are still around and there are also more paintings. Aileen Ribeiro gives the plausible reason why women opted to not be painted with a patch, namely its sexual undertones. To wear patches meant walking the line between flirtatious and promiscuous so perhaps it is not so strange that a fine lady choose not to be portrayed with one. Though there are several paintings with women wearing patches, most of those are anonymous women, only a few are portraits of known persons. Perhaps it is not so strange that two of those are of women who had benefitted from their sexuality and became a king’s mistress. Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV’s famous mistress and Grace Dalrymple Elliot, lover of the future George IV.




Detail from Portrait of Oopjen Coppit
by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1634

In contrast, the only named portrait I have found of a 17^th century lady, it is Rembrandt’s portrait of the demure looking Oopjen Coppit. And with her patch placed at the temple it may very well be there to enhance her pale skin, but its alibi is the toothache cure.

 

In Hogarth’s paintings, the connection to loose moral standards is very clear. It is the madams and the prostitutes who wear patches and they don’t wear just one, but several all over their faces.

Detail from Scene in a tavern by William Hogarth, 1735





Madame de Montespan, school of Pierre Mignard, 17th century
She might be wearing a patch on her right cheek, but it hard to tell.
Perhaps it is just a dis-colouration. 

I think there is another reason for the absence of patches in art. Why paint in a mouche that might be seen as a proof of less than perfect skin when the artist could give you a porcelain skin? A lady, who used patches because of bad skin, would probably not want to advertise that fact.  There is another thing to keep in mind. A patch could be very small and though the Net provides us with a wealth of art we would never be able to see in person, the pictures we see are almost always smaller versions of the real thing. A patch may simply not be visible on a computer screen. Perhaps there are more portraits out there with a discreet patch here or there. 

 

 The literary patch
 

From John Bulwer's Anthropometamorphosis, 1650

 

And thus he rails at drinking all before ‘um,

And for lewd women does be-whore 'um,

And brings their painted-faces and black patches to th' Quorum./ François Rabelais

 

With the patch so curiously absent from art it could be easy to imagine that it wasn’t such a beauty fad it actually was. Luckily there is an abundance of literary references from both the 17^th and the 18^th century.  As with anything highly fashionable, the use of patches were severely criticised from the start. Religious pamphlets abhorred the use, lumping it together with other objectionable practices such as makeup and probably advertising the end of the world. John Bulwer compared the fashion, along with several others, to what more primitive people wore and did not much care for it. He was not alone, throughout the 17^th and 18^th century critical voices were raised against the patch, though they seemed not to have been much listened to. Perhaps a better grip on psychology than just plain condemning it would have worked better. Like the 17^th century clergyman who told his congregation that he could learn to accept patches- if the wearer was one of those who needed it to hide scars and blemishes. There was a notable decrease of patching in his parish after that.

Pierre Jélyotte in the Role of the Nymph Plataea in 
Jean-Philippe Rameau's Comic Opera Platée ou Junon jalouse 
by Charles-Antoine Coypel ca. 1745.

In the 18^th century the religious objections against patches grow quieter, but the wearing of patches was often used as a literary device to underline a person who was a bit ridiculous or trying to look younger. The Swedish poet Carl Michael Bellman mentions the “musch” twice, in epistle 39 and 86. Madame Bergström sails fort with a bouquet of flowers at her bosom, dangling earrings, a lap dog under her arm and with a patch on her forehead. This promising beginning of a beauty out for a stroll is quickly punctuated when she is called an old dragon with way too much of a chin. She has rigged herself up to look ridiculous.

There were more positive views as well. If a woman was pious, sensible and morally untouchable, then it was quite generally viewed that a patch or two could do no harm. They were to be worn sensibly, though.

Matilda a fine woman, great sense, religious, educate her daughters, well-dressed

As to the patching, she reserves that to herself; for, she says, if they are not stuck on with judgment, they are lather a prejudice, than an advantage to the face./ George Whitefield
 

Detail from Coquette at her Toilet by William Ward, 1787

 

Hortence Mancini wasn’t the only one who defended her patch wearing with stating that God would hardly mind, in the late 17^th century a young woman answers her mother who doesn’t approve, along the same line, that wearing patches are a quite harmless thing to do.

 

Disappearance and comebacks

 



Life Magazine, 1948

In the 1790’s the age of the patches came to an end. Though the use of makeup didn’t disappear, it became something furtive that were applied on the sly and not meant to be seen. The highly visible patch didn’t fit in into that philosophy and, for a time, it disappeared. However, by the mid-19^th century the beauty spot came into fashion again for a little while and since then it has turned up from time to time.

Luupe Velez, 1920's



With better medical resources to curb smallpox and venereal diseases, some of the reasons for wearing patches disappeared and during the 20^th century the patch was not so much a patch but a painted spot. When the movie industry gained popularity, several stars affected beauty spot, for example Gloria Swanson, Jean Harlow and Lupe Velez.
 
Marilyn Monroe who had a natural mole on her cheek, used to fill it in with a pen to make it more visible. In the 60’s the advice was to paint the beauty spot on, using makeup pens of two different colour like a blue and a green one. Patches meant to be glued on the skin didn’t completely disappear though, in 1948 patches in a multitude of shapes could be bought to highlight ones best features.



Marilyn Monroe, 1950's

At the moment the fashion for a patch seem to be in a lull. Perhaps it is time to revive it again?

 

 

Sources

 

A collection of epigrams: To which is prefix'd, a critical dissertation on this species of poetry, Printed for J. Walthoe, 1727 (Google eBook)

Addison, Joseph, Remarks on several parts of Italy , &c in the years 1701, 1702, 1703. The Tatler. By Isaac Bickerstaffe, esq. The Spectator, no.1-89, Jacob Tonson, 1721 (Google eBook)

Beaumont, Francis, Fletcher, John, , Mr. Theobald (Lewis), Mr. Seward, Sidrach Simpson, The works of Mr. Francis Beaumont, and Mr. John Fletcher: In ten volumes. Collated with all the former editions, and corrected. With notes critical and explanatory, Volume 2, Printed for J. and R. Tonson and S. Draper, 1750 (Google eBook)

“Beauty Patches, The romantic looks get a boost from still another old custom”, LIFE 2 Feb 1948, Vol. 24, No. 5, p. 41-43 (Google eBook)

Bell, John, Discourses on the nature and cure of wounds, Edinburgh, 1795. (Google eBook)

Jean Patchett, Vogue, 1950

Bellman, Carl Michael, Complete epistles found at http://www.bellman.net/

Butler, Samuel, Hudibras: corrected and amended. With large annotations, and a preface by Z. Grey, 1744 (Google eBook)

Burke, Edmund, Annual register, Volume 22, St. Martin's Press, 1780 (Google eBook)

Corson, Richard, Fashions in makeup: from ancient to modern times, London : Owen , 1972

Granger, James, A biographical history of England, from Egbert the Great to the Revolution: consisting of characters disposed in different classes, and adapted to a methodical catalogue of engraved British heads. Intended as an essay towards reducing our biography to system, and a help to the knowledge of portraits. Interspersed with variety of anecdotes, and memoirs of a great number of persons. With a preface, Volume 2, Part 1, Printed for T. Davies, 1769 (Google eBook)

Hogarth, William, The analysis of beauty: written with a view of fixing the fluctuating ideas of taste, Printed by W. Strahan, for Mrs. Hogarth, 1772  (Google eBook)

Le Camus, Antoine, Abdeker: or, the art of preserving beauty. Translated from an Arabic manuscript, Dublin : printed for John Murphy, 1756.

Misson, Henri, M. Misson's Memoirs and observations in his travels over England, Printed for D. Browne, 1719 (Google eBook)

Motteux, Peter Anthony, Loves a Jest. A Comedy. (1. Ed.) Buck, 1696 (Google eBook)

 

Pepys, Samuel, Diary, Volume 1, Cassell, 1661 (Google eBook)



Rhonda Fleming, 1940's

Pepys, Samuel, The diary of Samuel Pepys for the first time fully transcribed from the shorthand manuscript in the Pepysian library, Volume 8 , G. E. Croscup, 1665  (Google eBook)

Prior, Matthew, Poems on several occasions, C. Hitch, J. Hodges, 1754 (Google eBook)

Rabelais, François, The works of Mr. Francis Rabelais, doctor in physick, Volume 1, Priv. print. for the Navarre society limited, 1653  (Google eBook)

Rennells, Lauren, Retro Makeup: Techniques for Applying the Vintage Look, HRST Books, 2011

Ribeiro, Aileen, Facing beauty: painted women & cosmetic art, New Haven, Conn. ; Yale University Press, 2011

Saint-Evremond, Saint-Réal (César Vichard, M. l'abbé de), Hortense Manchini de La Portre Mazarin (duchesse de), de La Valterie, Works, made English from the French original: With the author's life, Volume 3, Printed for J. Churchill, 1714  (Google eBook)

Steele, Sir Richard & Addison, Joseph, The lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff, esq, Volume 2, Printed for E. Nutt, 1733 (Google eBook)

Thépaut-Cabasset, Corinne, The Mouche, beauty patch. Innovation, name and reputation http://www.fashioningtheearlymodern.ac.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/The-Mouche-Object-in-focus-final-text1.pdf

 

Whitefield , George, The Works of the Reverend George Whitefield: Containing All His Sermons and Tracts which Have Been Already Published ; with a Select Collection of Letters Written to His Most Intimate Friends, and Persons of Distinction, in England, Scotland, Ireland, and America, from the Year 1734, to 1770 ; Including the Whole Period of His Ministry ; Also, Some Other Pieces on Important Subjects, Never Before Printed, Volume 4, Edward and Charles Dilly, 1771  (Google eBook)

Woman with a beauty spot by Serge Ivanoff, 1937