Marchioness of Belfont with a Page in 1700, Jefferys Costume Plate, 1757

An original antique print, a copper engraving colored by hand, lettered "Habit of the Marchioness of Belfont, Daughter of the Duke of Mazarine, in 1700." Two figures share the plate. At the viewer's left a tall woman in a high lace headdress and a pearl necklace stands with her gloved hands folded, wearing a dark green mantle with ruffled pink trimming and white lace flounces over a peach gown edged with rows of pink ruching and a patterned hem. At the viewer's right a young Black page in a white turban with a pink plume, a red coat with gold frogging, a blue waistcoat and white stockings carries the end of her long green train in one hand and points toward her with the other.

Two lines of lettering run below the image. The English title, in a flowing script, reads "Habit of the Marchioness of Belfont, Daughter of the Duke of Mazarine, in 1700." The French caption beneath it reads "Madame la Marquise de Belfont.", meaning "Madam the Marchioness of Belfont", and the number 135 is engraved at lower right. "Marchioness" is engraved with the long s. The plate carries no engraver or designer credit.

The plate comes from the second volume of Thomas Jefferys' A Collection of the Dresses of Different Nations, Antient and Modern. Particularly Old English Dresses. After the Designs of Holbein, Vandyke, Hollar, and others, published in London in 1757 by Jefferys, Geographer to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, in the Strand. The work carried a parallel French title, Recueil des Habillements de Différentes Nations, which explains the French caption on each plate. It falls among the French figures of the volume. The year in the English title is the date of the costume shown, not of the print, which was published in 1757.

With its two figures and lively gesture, the plate makes a good centerpiece for a group of costume prints.

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