Wig
Date1817-1830
OriginIreland
MediumHorsehair, silk
DimensionsOL: 5" x OW: 3 ½" x OH: 10"
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Object number2008-118,A
DescriptionBarrister's wig of grey hair, styled with tightly curled crown, long horizontal curls over the ears, and queue. The wig was stored in a painted tin box (see 2008-118B).Label TextFor symbolic reasons, British barristers continue to wear eighteenth-century style wigs hundreds of years after wigs have ceased to be worn as fashion. By the date of this wig, fashionable men were wearing their own hair, not wigs, except for ceremonial purposes. W. H. Griffith, Esquire, whose name is painted on the wig's tin box, was Walter Hussey Griffith of Ireland. He was born in 1794 and became a barrister in 1817. He was still practicing in Dublin in 1850, when he appeared in the city directory with an office at 13 Clare Street. His son Walter Downes Griffith also became a barrister, as did his grandson, named Walter Hussey Griffith after his grandfather.
Exhibition(s)
1817-1830
ca. 1756
c. 1790
1800-1825 (probably)
Probably 1838-1842
1733-1738
1770-1775
