Governor of the Low Countries for the King of Spain in 1576, Jefferys, 1757

An original antique print, a copper engraving colored by hand, lettered "Habit of the Governor of the Low Countries for the King of Spain in 1576." A bearded officer stands in a polished steel breastplate with a high ruff, a red sash crossing his chest from shoulder to hip and a blue ribbon with a badge at his neck. A purple cloak hangs from his shoulders behind him, his sleeves are tawny brown, and his trunk hose are paned in stripes of gold, brown and blue. He holds a baton of command in his outstretched hand at the viewer's left and rests his other hand on his hip, where a long rapier with a swept hilt hangs at his side, its blade angled down to the viewer's right. White stockings and tan shoes complete the costume.

The English title is engraved in script beneath the image: "Habit of the Governor of the Low Countries for the King of Spain in 1576." Below it is the French caption "Governeur pour le Roy, de Espagne aux Bays Bas" (in English, "Governor for the King of Spain in the Low Countries"), and the plate number 122 is engraved at lower right. "Bays Bas" is engraved for Pays Bas, the Low Countries. No engraver or designer is named on the plate.

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 Spanish figures of the volume. In 1576 the Low Countries were governed for the Spanish crown by a governor general, during the revolt against Spain. The year in the English title is the date of the costume shown, not of the print, which was published in 1757.

It can be shown on its own or grouped with neighboring plates from the same nation.

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