Live Human Garden Ornaments of the 18th Century

Rich people used to hire hermits to live in their gardens for kicks.

Human Garden Ornament (1795), By Johann Baptist Theobald Schmitt, Wikimedia Commons

Green grass, lively flowers, tall trees, and a disheveled white-haired hermit — all things that you’d in a garden of the wealthy English elite of the 18th century. Having a human garden ornament, a possible precursor to the garden gnome, was the best way to flex your…