Merchant's Wife in Holland in 1640 with a Basket, Jefferys Costume Plate, 1757

An original antique print, a copper engraving colored by hand, lettered "Habit of a Merchants Wife in Holland, in 1640." A woman faces the viewer in a white cap with winged sides and a very large pleated millstone ruff. Her short dark purple jacket, with tabbed shoulders, opens over a pink front laced with gold, and her sleeves are golden brocade with white cuffs. A long white apron covers the front of a crimson skirt banded near the hem with darker stripes, and she lifts the apron with one hand. A woven basket hangs from the crook of her arm at the viewer's right.

Two lines of lettering run below the figure. The English title, in a flowing script, reads "Habit of a Merchants Wife in Holland, in 1640." The French caption beneath it reads "Merchande Hollandois.", meaning "Dutch merchant woman", and the number 143 is engraved at lower right. The plate carries no engraver or designer credit.

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 figures from the Low Countries in the volume. The year in the English title is the date of the costume shown, not of the print, which was published in 1757.

A cream or ivory mat brings out the hand coloring against the plain paper.

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