What is the ideal hands in the past?
Nicholas Andry
Nicholas Andry had defined ideals of the hand in his seminal Orthopaedia. For Andry, hands ought to be 'well-shaped... delicate, pretty long and not square.' Ideally, fingernails should be 'pretty long and a lively colour, with a small white spot at the root'. Nails that were uneven, too large, divided or with their edges 'mangled' were neither desirable nor aesthetically pleasing. There was also a practical element to keeping fingernails in trim.
As the 'principal organs of touch', hands were vital in the sensory world of the eighteenth century and should be cherished. Legions of recipes in medical self-help books could be found for lotions, pastes, and washes to beautify the hands and especially to preserve the shiteness and transparency of the skin.
Transforming the Body: Technology, self-fashioning and politeness in the eighteenth century,
by A. Withey
3 December 2015