By Elizabeth Jewell
Co-regional coordinator Sara Tavela introduced the speaker for the October meeting, Dr. Meghan Kobza, who presented information on the history of masquerade balls. Dr. Kobza is a historian of leisure culture, costume, and commercialization in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She completed her PhD at Newcastle University in 2020 and held a postdoctoral fellowship there, exploring the interconnections between display, performance, and consumer culture, and how making, selling, and/or wearing leisure costumes impacted cultural perceptions of race and gender. This research will be published in a future book.
The book that formed the basis for this discussion, The Masquerade: A History of Extravagance and Intrigue, was published in 2026 by Yale University Press.
Dr. Kobza gave a PowerPoint presentation entitled “Facts, Fiction, & Fantasy: The Phenomenon of the Georgian Masquerade.” She noted that masquerades appear in historical dramas, including The Phantom of the Opera, Bridgerton, and Casanova, a 2005 film starring Heath Ledger.
Masquerades were at their height during the eighteenth century, roughly the same as the Georgian era in England (1714-1830; the latter part of this period includes the Regency period). During this time, the masquerade allowed aristocratic attendees to use fashion and behavior to distinguish themselves from lower classes, like the newly wealthy merchant class. Masqueraders frequently dressed down in class—as, for example, a butcher, a harlequin, or a nun—but lower classes did not dress above their own class.
Dr. Kobza showed us a 1724 painting by Giuseppe Grisoni, A Masquerade at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket. At this time, the commercial director of the theatre was Johann Jacob Heidegger, known as “the ugliest man in London.” The masquerades he promoted were based on court masques known during Tudor and Stuart times (1485-1714); these were based on the carnival known in Venice during the Middle Ages. Carnival was an annual festival ending on Shrove Tuesday (Fat Tuesday), the day before the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday. Carnival was held outside in the streets, unlike the English masquerade, which was held indoors.
Heidegger’s masquerades were commercial events; participants bought tickets and guards at the door of the theatre checked tickets. The cost helped keep the masquerade exclusive—it was roughly equal to $550 in today’s dollars for the ticket (an elaborate printed item that was sometimes forged!), and the costume was an additional expense. The reputation of masquerades was scandalous, with the assumption that the masks and costumes made it possible for people to get away with unacceptable behavior. But this was a popular myth put forward by critics who did not attend masquerades and possibly a trope meant to control women; the reality was that masks were removed before supper, and Dr. Kobza found no reports of ladies whose reputations were damaged because they attended a masquerade. The level of daring behavior was about the same as was found attending the theater or visiting the pleasure gardens.
People could dress as members of other cultures and religions, so some popular costumes were sultans/sultanas, Ottomans, Chinese, or West Indians. Costumes fell into three basic categories: the domino, a long cloak-like, hooded garment that could be worn over one’s regular clothing; fancy dress, including dress from other time periods; and character dress, which encouraged the wearer to act like the costume. So a harlequin or devil would be mischievous, and a nun or Quaker would be demure. Dr. Kobza reflected that the candlelit space would be crowded and hot, with the smell of body odor and perfumes, all providing an intense sensory experience. Later in the time period during which masquerades were common, the tickets were itemized, so that attendees paid for entrance, private boxes, meals, drinks, and costume rentals separately.
A teenaged Jane Austen presented her version of a masquerade in the late eighteenth century; she would not have been to one at her age, but would have seen images and read about them. A lively illustration shows people dressing for such a small-scale masquerade, with one woman dressing as a man. Austen writes about birthday masquerades, which were quite common.
One illustration Dr. Kobza shared included real and imagined costumes; a person dressed as a bear was real, but a naked person was probably not! One fantastical costume was a figure in a coffin (made by an undertaker); Dr. Kobza found a description of this, which noted the back was fabric and would allow the person to escape the costume.
During the questions after the talk, Dr. Kobza was asked how she came to study this subject. She said she was originally interested in the idea of anonymity; she started identifying the differences between the idea of anonymous debauchery and the reality of what the research showed.
Sara noted that this year’s AGM occurs during Halloween, and the traditional ball will be a masquerade.
This summary will be posted on the JASNA-NC webpage in the coming days.