Javanese Lady of the Upper Class, Antique Wahlen Costume Print, 1843-1844

A Javanese lady of the upper class, an original antique wood engraving from Auguste Wahlen's Moeurs, usages et costumes de tous les peuples du monde, published in Brussels between 1843 and 1844. The plate is lettered "Dame Javanaise de la haute classe (Océanie.)", a Javanese lady of the upper class, placed by the publisher in his Oceania section. Rank on nineteenth century Java was marked closely in dress, and the patterns of batik reserved to the courts and to the families around them were among the details that European travel writers recorded and that costume books such as this one then repeated. The sheet is therefore a record of a European reading of Javanese social division as much as of the dress itself. The sheet is a wood engraving on paper and is uncoloured, as issued in this part of the series, and the crispness of the block work is what carries the image.

Moeurs, usages et costumes de tous les peuples du monde was published in Brussels by Auguste Wahlen at the Librairie Historique-Artistique between 1843 and 1844. The four volumes set out to describe the dress, customs, occupations and social divisions of the peoples of Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and Oceania, drawing on travel narratives, earlier costume books and other sources then treated as authoritative, and they carried approximately one hundred and ninety to two hundred plates, the count varying between copies and editions.

Wahlen was the publisher and compiler rather than the artist, and where a name such as Duverger, Pannemaker, Mercier, Lisbet, Markaert or Vermorcken appears on a sheet it belongs to the illustrator or the engraver, and no artist is attributed here without one.

The plates are wood engravings on paper. The images should be read as a nineteenth century European interpretation of the cultures they show rather than as a documentary record, which is a large part of what makes the series interesting to historians of the period. A Javanese costume print of this kind suits a dressing room or a study, and it groups well with the other Java subjects from the series when hung as a set.

The sheet is in good condition for its age, with light toning, a small edge nick and a few marginal spots; the image itself is clean and strong.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.