Fashion under Louis XVI, Set of Three Antique Costume Prints, circa 1882

This is a set of three original antique hand-colored wood engravings, sold together as one lot, from Augustin Challamel's La France et les Francais a travers les siecles, Paris, circa 1882. The sheets are, in order: The Hat Worn Back to Front; Young Elegant of the Reign of Louis XVI; Young Lady and Small Boy of the 18th Century. A woman wearing her hat deliberately back to front above a head of tightly curled hair, standing in a high waisted gown with a long shawl, taken from the Cabinet des modes de Harlem. A young man of the reign of Louis the Sixteenth in a cutaway coat with a high collar, a striped waistcoat, breeches and striped stockings, a tall hat on his powdered hair and a slender cane in his hand. A young woman in a sacque backed gown with a lace cap leading a small boy in a skirted coat and a plumed hat, the two figures turned toward one another on a plain ground.

This sheet was issued at Paris about 1882 by F. Roy, editeur, in Augustin Challamel's history of France and the French through the centuries, a work crowned by the Academie francaise. Challamel was also the author of a history of fashion in France, and the costume plates are the part of the book he cared about most. They are wood engravings, and the color has been applied by hand over the printed line, which is why the washes sit slightly across the engraved outline in places. This is a wood engraving finished by hand in watercolor. The coloring is bold rather than subtle, which suits the flat decorative drawing, and the strong yellows, reds and blues of the suite are what make these sheets work so well in a group on a wall rather than only as reference illustrations.

The plate records a specific and short lived affectation, the hat turned around, which is exactly the kind of detail the fashion journals of the seventeen nineties existed to report and that nothing else preserves. The cutaway coat and the tall hat in this plate are the beginning of modern male dress, the point at which the full skirted habit gives way to something a man could still wear today in outline. They are three original sheets sold together, and the set is never split. A matched group like this is easier to place than a single sheet, because it fills a wall on its own, and the common ground and plate size mean the frames can be identical.

Light uneven toning, browner toward the edges. Marked handling soiling along the edges of all three sheets. Light foxing in the margins of all three sheets. Slight wear at the corners of two of the three sheets.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.