Colonel of the Pandours and Master of the Watch in 1742, Jefferys Plate, 1757

This is an original antique copper engraving with hand coloring, lettered in script "Habit of a Collonel of the Pandours & Master of the Watch, in 1742." A moustached officer in a black three cornered hat steps forward, a red cloak lined with fur hanging from his right shoulder on the viewer's left. Beneath it he wears a yellow coat closed with frogging, a pink sash, and close yellow breeches with pink stockings and tan boots. A curved saber hangs at his side and he rests his left hand on a long thin cane.

The French caption beneath reads "Colonel Pandoure Maître de la Garde.", meaning Pandour colonel, master of the guard. The English title keeps the old spelling Collonel. The plate is numbered 184 at lower right; no artist or engraver is named.

Thomas Jefferys, Geographer to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, published A Collection of the Dresses of Different Nations, Antient and Modern in London in 1757, and this plate comes from the second volume. The title page names Holbein, Vandyke, Hollar and others as the sources of the designs, and the book also bears a French title, Recueil des Habillements de Différentes Nations, matching the French captions engraved beneath each English title. The Pandours were irregular troops raised on the Habsburg frontier in Croatia and Slavonia, and they became widely known in western Europe during the War of the Austrian Succession, which began in 1740.

With its clear single figure and wide margins, the plate is easy to mount and frame, alone or as part of a small group.

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