Aletes in the Tragedy of Creusa, Georgian Stage Costume, Jefferys Print, 1757

This is an original antique copper engraving from 1757, colored by hand, lettered "Habit of Aletes in the Tragedy of Creusa." Aletes stands facing the viewer in a tall black fur cap, a crimson cloak lined and bordered with black fur falling from his shoulders. Beneath it he wears a gray cuirass worked with silver scrolls and masks, a pink sash, and a skirt of tabbed and fringed lappets in pink and gold, the upper ones bearing small masks. His hand rests on the hilt of a sword that angles down toward the viewer's right, and pale hose end in laced buff boots trimmed with fur.

The English title is engraved in script below the image: "Habit of Aletes in the Tragedy of Creusa." Beneath it, in smaller italic letters, is the French caption "Aletes, dans la Tragedie de Creuse.", meaning "Aletes, in the tragedy of Creusa". The plate number 231 is engraved at lower right. No engraver or artist is named on the plate.

The plate comes from the second volume of Thomas Jefferys' A Collection of the Dresses of Different Nations, Antient and Modern, published in London in 1757 by Jefferys, Geographer to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, in the Strand. The work has a parallel French title page, Recueil des Habillements de Différentes Nations, which is why each plate is captioned in both languages. The later plates of the volume form a series titled The Habits of the Principal Characters on the English Stage, recording how leading parts were dressed in the London theaters of the period. Creusa, Queen of Athens, a tragedy by William Whitehead, was first staged at Drury Lane in 1754.

The crimson and black coloring is striking, and the plate hangs well with other stage figures from the same series.

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