A Zealander, Zeeland Regional Dress, Antique Ackermann Print, 1817

An original antique engraving, colored by hand, from Miss Semple's The Costume of the Netherlands, lettered "A Zealander". A woman stands turned slightly to the right under a very wide flat straw hat, over a white cap tied with blue ribbon. She wears a brown jacket with a full flared skirt at the hips and elbow length sleeves, a white kerchief at the neck and several rows of gold beads at each wrist, and she holds two oval gold ornaments in her clasped hands. A long pale blue apron covers the front of a skirt striped in red and white, and she wears black shoes with large silver buckles. Low shrubs and a hazy horizon fill the ground behind her.

The caption is engraved in script below the image as "A Zealander", and beneath it is the publisher's imprint "Published Jan.y 1-1817, at R. Ackermann's, 101. Strand." No artist's or engraver's name is lettered on the plate; the drawings for the series are credited to Miss Semple on the title of the work.

The plate belongs to The Costume of the Netherlands, published in 1817 at Rudolph Ackermann's Repository of Arts, 101 Strand, London. The title of the work describes it as displayed in thirty colored engravings after drawings from nature by Miss Semple, with descriptions in English and French. Its figures cover the Dutch provinces, Flanders and Brabant, and the French border country around Valenciennes, each shown in everyday working or market dress rather than in formal portraiture. Ackermann issued many of the best known illustrated books of Regency London, and the plates of this work were colored by hand after printing.

The figure sits well in a simple narrow frame with a wide mount, and plates from the same work make a coherent group on one wall.

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