Girls near Valenciennes, French Regional Dress, Antique Print, 1817

An original antique engraving, colored by hand, from Miss Semple's The Costume of the Netherlands, lettered "Girls of the neighborhood of Valenciennes". Three young women walk together on a sandy rise. The one at the left, in a white frilled cap, a white kerchief and a small gold cross, looks down at a wicker basket on her arm, over a gray apron and a rose skirt. The girl in the middle wears a white cap, a white blouse with short full sleeves, a blue laced bodice and a long cream apron, and holds a flask at her side. The third, in a pink checked headscarf, a brown patterned jacket over a pink bodice and a blue and white striped skirt with blue stockings and sabots, points into the distance.

The caption is engraved in script below the image as "Girls of the neighborhood of Valenciennes", 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.