Wearing a handkerchief on your head

Last updated: Jan 05, 2025

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 it’s particularly windy outside. 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, 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
• 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