Gentlewoman of Brabant in 1640, Hand Colored Jefferys Costume Plate, 1757

An original antique print, a copper engraving colored by hand, lettered "Habit of a Gentlewoman of Brabant, in 1640." A young woman with long fair curls, a small ornament topped with a pink flower in her hair, turns toward the viewer and reaches out toward the viewer's right. A long sheer gray veil falls from the back of her head down her back. She wears a lace collar and a light blue gown with tight sleeves, its skirt looped up into full folds over a dark lining, and beneath it a golden yellow underskirt patterned with red sprigs. Pale blue stockings and yellow shoes show at her feet.

Two lines of lettering run below the figure. The English title, in a flowing script, reads "Habit of a Gentlewoman of Brabant, in 1640." The French caption beneath it reads "Dame Brabançonne.", meaning "Lady of Brabant", and the number 149 is engraved at lower right. The plate carries no engraver or designer credit.

This is a plate from Volume II of A Collection of the Dresses of Different Nations, Antient and Modern, published in London in 1757 by Thomas Jefferys in the Strand. Its title page announces the figures as taken "After the Designs of Holbein, Vandyke, Hollar, and others," and the book was also titled in French, Recueil des Habillements de Différentes Nations. It falls among the figures from the Low Countries in the volume. Brabant was a duchy of the southern Low Countries whose lands now lie in Belgium and the southern Netherlands. The year in the English title is the date of the costume shown, not of the print, which was published in 1757.

The clear figure and the engraved lettering read well at a distance, which suits a gallery wall of costume prints.

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