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18th Century Pudding Caps

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Additional Resources

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“The Dress of Old-Time Children” in Two Centuries of Costume in America, 1620-1820

Pilgrim John Howland Society: Hey Pudding Head

Children’s Clothes

Tidings from the Eighteenth Century What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America Eighteenth-Century Clothing at Williamsburg Wingeo's Pudding Cap pattern

Mrs. Hancock’s Pudding Cap, Part One and Part Two

Last updated: Feb 27, 2024

See also infants’ caps.

  • Rijksmuseum BK-NM-3009, a pudding cap in silk velvet
  • Pudding cap made for a doll, 18th century; “This pudding is constructed of bright red leather padded and quilted into thick bands that circumscribe the head and bands that meet at the top; the edges are bound in red silk with a red silk tie at the crown; it is lined in beige leather.”
  • Colonial Williamsburg 1971-1383,1-2, France, c. 1730-1750
  • Child’s silk velvet pudding, France
  • Historisches Museum Basel 1915.37, goat leather with silk ribbon, probably Basel
  • MFA 38.1324, France, damask padded cap
  • Met C.I.39.54.4, Switzerland
  • Manchester 1980.198/2, c. 1750-1770; “Very badly degraded pale blue figured silk with silver thread embroidery and silver lace.
    Cap on foundation of soft thick paper pleated and tacked with large stitches into shape. Front edge of cap is wired to shape. Cap is lined with a coarsely woven brushed cotton. Cap is covered with blue silk (very degraded) outlined in bobbin lace. Each section has silver embroidery in design of palmettes and foliage, with some silver spangles. Silver embroidery is padded with vellum.
    Circlet headband, padded with soft yellowish fibres, lined with ivory silk over a paper foundation. Outside of band covered with silk damask, with silver thread floral embroidery fore and aft. Ear pieces have silver embroidery and unravelled silver lace. Each side has cut end of ivory silk ribbon, presumably a chin tie.”
  • MFA 43.1839, child’s head protector in lace and blue silk
  • GNM T2833, silk with metal thread and linen lining, reinforced with paper, c. 1770
  • Colonial Williamsburg 1952-55, England, c. 1770-1785; “Quilted cotton velvet bound with silk ribbon, horsehair stuffing, leather lining”
  • V&A B.81-1995, Britain, c. 1775-1800; “The ‘pudding’ consists of a sausage-like horseshoe-shaped roll of glazed pink cotton, which has a padded white linen inner stiffened with wire and card, and a black petersham ribbon tying string at each end. Four lightly padded triangular flaps of self fabric, stiffened with card, are attached to the roll at regular intervals (partly covering the crown of the head), two of them fastening together over the head with tying strings of broad black silk ribbon. The edges of the triangular flaps and the top seam-line of the roll are all edged with narrow black velvet ribbon.”
  • Bonhams 1 Jul 2015, Lot 584, a late 18th century pudding cap “of ribbed brown leather, featuring a thick padded band, with four lobed padded tabs to secure at the top, all trimmed with red braid and lined with green cotton”
  • Met 2009.300.1453, 1st quarter of the 19th century

Depictions of pudding caps on 18th century children