18th Century Pack Baskets

Last updated: Jan 15, 2024

Most 18th century baskets are identifiable by their shape, often with a unique name and a distinct purpose. Those skinny conical baskets you use to sell strawberries are pottles. Those broad, round baskets that your laundress uses to carry your clothes to the wash are buckbaskets.

But what are backpack baskets? The modern name tends to be “pack basket,” but I’m not clear on the right 18th century term for such a thing. Possibly dosser or dorser, but these really refer to a large basket used to carry goods “on Horſeback” or “on either ſide [of] a beaſt of burthen.”

If I find the historic English term for the 18th century backpack basket, I’ll add it here. In the meanwhile, here are some examples of these pack baskets from 18th century illustrations.

• Landscape with conversing peasants by Pieter de Molijn, c. 1640
• The Bakers Cart by Jean Michelin, 1656
• Le Fendeur de Bois, after 1674
• The Cryes of the City of London Drawne after the Life, by Marcellus Laroon II, 1688, including Remember the Poor Priſoners and Buy my Flounders
• Wanderer by Jan Luyken, 1711
• Diep Watersz: Strand: Staaten en andere Bockom
• Several of Edme Bouchardon’s drawings of the Cris de Paris, c. 1730s, including a baker boy, a broom seller, a pottery seller, a street seller, and an oyster seller
• Evening at the Piazza by Giacomo Ceruti, c. 1730
• Spinner and farmer with a basket by Giacomo Cerruti
• A washerwoman by Louis Philippe Boitard, c. 1733-1763
• A woman in rustic dress by Paul Sandby, c. 1740-1765
• Boy with a basket by Giacomo Ceruti, 1745
• A woman carrying a heavy load, c. 1749
• The Joys of Motherhood by Jean-Honoré Fragonard
• Pages 9, 10, 12, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 34, 36, 39, etc. in the Cries of Danzig, c. 1765
• Woman with baskets and stick by Johann Andreas Benjamin Nothnagel, 1772
• Cris de Paris, 1774, including sellers of watercress, herbs, boxes, sand, and chickweed
• Pretzel baker, c 1775
• A Collection of Etchings after the Most Eminent Masters of the Dutch and Flemish Schools, c. 1782-1803
• An Edinburgh Fishwife by David Allan, c. 1785
• Tinker by Franz Feyerabend, 1790
• Village woman carrying a basket on her back by Johannes Pieter de Frey, 1790s
• Farmer with a basket on his back
• Pay de Veaud, c. 1795-1831
• Cries of Edinburgh: sellers of salt, haddock, caller oſts, 1803
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