Noblewoman of Swabia in Purple Jacket and Green Skirt, Costume of 1581, 1757

This is an original antique copper engraving with hand coloring, lettered "Habit of a Noble Woman of Swabia, in 1581." It is plate 180 from Thomas Jefferys' A Collection of the Dresses of Different Nations, published in London in 1757. The noblewoman stands with her hands folded, her hair held in a net beneath a small hat with a jeweled band and a pink plume. She wears a ruff and several gold chains, and a short purple jacket with puffed sleeve heads over long green sleeves. Her full green skirt, worked with a large scrolling pattern and banded in dark gray edged with gold, opens at the front over a gray latticed panel.

The English title is engraved in script below the figure, with the French caption "Damoiselle de Souabe." (Young gentlewoman of Swabia) beneath it and the plate number 180 at lower right. No engraver or designer is named on the plate. The date in the English title is the date of the costume shown; the print itself was published in 1757.

Thomas Jefferys, Geographer to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, published the second volume of A Collection of the Dresses of Different Nations, Antient and Modern from his premises in the Strand, London, in 1757. As the title page states, the figures follow the designs of Holbein, Vandyke, Hollar and others. The book was bilingual, with the French title Recueil des Habillements de Différentes Nations, and its plates pair an English title in script with a shorter French caption.

The plate works well framed on its own, or as part of a small group of regional costume prints in matching frames.

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