Girl selling Matches in Rotterdam, Street Seller, Antique Print, 1817

An original antique hand colored engraving after Miss Semple, lettered "Girl selling Matches in the Streets of Rotterdam.", from The Costume of the Netherlands published by Rudolph Ackermann in London in 1817. A young girl walks toward the viewer under a light wooden yoke, holding in each hand a cluster of small bundles of pale yellow match splints that also hang on cords from the yoke. She wears a white cap, a short white cape patterned in lilac, a red sash at the waist, a long buff skirt over a blue striped petticoat showing at the hem, and black buckled shoes.

The engraved caption below the image reads "Girl selling Matches in the Streets of Rotterdam." and beneath it runs the imprint "Published Jan.y 1, 1817, at R. Ackermann's, 101 Strand.". The plate carries no engraver's signature, and the drawings for the whole series are credited on the title page to Miss Semple.

The plate belongs to The Costume of the Netherlands, published in London in 1817 by Rudolph Ackermann at his Repository of Arts, 101 Strand. The title page announces thirty colored engravings after drawings from nature by Miss Semple, with descriptions in English and French, and the plates carry imprints dated in the course of 1817. Each figure or group is set on a small washed patch of ground against the open paper, with the caption engraved in a copperplate script below. Ackermann (1764 to 1834), a German born publisher and print seller working in London, issued many illustrated books with hand colored plates, as well as the periodical The Repository of Arts.

A single plate suits a narrow frame with a generous mat, and several plates from the series hang well together as a group of Dutch street and household scenes.

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