Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1895 — Origin of the Parasol. [ARTICLE]

Origin of the Parasol.

The origin of the parasol is scarcely known, so great is its antiquity. A Chinese legend attributes its invention to the wife of Lou-pan, a celebrated carpenter in China, more than 2,000 years before Christ. Traces of it are found along the Nile, in the frescoes of the tombs at Thebes and bas-reliefs of palaces of Memphis and Ninevah sculptures. It played an important part in ancient Greece, having been carried in sacred and funeral processions as a religious ceremonial as well as a protection from the sun’s rays, and at festivals of Bacchus, who, it seems, of all the gods alone enjoyed the privilege of the sunshade. Toward the close of the eighteenth century great progress was obtained in the manufacture of small sunshades and parasols, they being quite light in weight and beautiful in decoration. In the public gardens of Paris were seen parasols of delicate blue trimmed with silver, light green relieved with gold, flesh tints and scarlet Indian cashmeres with bangles rough or delicately carved. Our grandmother's sunshades, from 1815 to 1880, were covered with colored crape or damasked satin, with checkered silk, streaked, striped or figured. Others had their beauty enhanced by the addition of blonde or lace, embroidered with glass trinkets or garnished with feathers, with gold and silver lace or silk trimmings. The fashionable colors then were very light or very deep, without intermediate tones—white, straw yellow, pink or myrtle green, chestnut and black, red or indigo. In 1834 a full-dress parasol is described as being of “unbleached silk casing mounted on a stick of American bind-weed, with a top of gold and carved coral.’ Another one i 3 “striped wood, similar top, with fluted knob and covered with myrtle - green paduasoy, with satin border.” A dozen years later the fashion was to have them entirely of one color, white, or pink.or green, sometimes edged with lace. This soon changed to borders of figured gar - lands, satin stripes, blue or green, on unbleached silk, or violet on white or sulphur. Carriage parasols came in fashion about 1855 and were called “ Pompadour.” These were made with folding sticks, covering of satin or moire antique and bordered with trimmings and streamers. They were embroidered with gold and silk, and beautified by an edging of Chantilly, point d’lencon and other laces. These folding-sticks were carved pearl, shell and horn.