Habit of Queen Mary in 1554, Hand Colored Jefferys Costume Plate, 1757

This is an original antique copper engraving with hand coloring, lettered in script "Habit of Queen Mary, in 1554". The queen stands facing us wearing a small crown over a cap and a high standing collar, with a jewel at her breast. Her dark gray gown is edged with fur and has wide turned back sleeves over full pale yellow undersleeves, and it opens down the front over a yellow skirt embroidered with large scrolls. She holds a gold scepter in her left hand, on the viewer's right, and lets her right hand fall at her side.

The French caption beneath reads "La Reine Marie.", meaning Queen Mary. The plate number 200 is engraved at lower right; no artist or engraver is named.

The plate belongs to the second volume of Thomas Jefferys' A Collection of the Dresses of Different Nations, Antient and Modern. Particularly Old English Dresses, published in London in 1757 by Jefferys, Geographer to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, in the Strand. The title page states that the figures were taken after the designs of Holbein, Vandyke, Hollar and others, and the work carried a parallel French title, Recueil des Habillements de Différentes Nations, which explains the two languages on every plate. Mary I, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, reigned from 1553 to 1558. In 1554 she married Philip of Spain, the year given in the caption.

A single standing figure on a generous margin, it suits a simple mount and frame and works well alone or in a group with other plates from the series.

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