Princess Dowager of Conti in 1700 in an Ermine Lined Robe, Jefferys, 1757

An original antique print, a copper engraving colored by hand, lettered "Habit of the Princess Dowager of Conty, in 1700." A woman with her hair piled in curls and set with a jewel looks toward the viewer, one hand extended toward the viewer's right. She wears a blue bodice open over a gold laced front, with a lace edged neckline and sleeves trimmed in ermine. A heavy purple mantle lined and bordered with ermine is draped around her and gathered at the hip, and a pink and gold striped scarf billows out behind her at the viewer's left. Beneath the mantle a blue and gold patterned underskirt shows at her feet.

The English title is engraved in script beneath the image: "Habit of the Princess Dowager of Conty, in 1700." Below it is the French caption "Princesse de Conty doüairiere." (in English, "Dowager Princess of Conty"), and the plate number 132 is engraved at lower right. "Conty" is the old spelling of Conti, and "Princess" and "Princesse" are engraved with the long s. No engraver or designer is named on the plate.

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. In 1700 the Princess Dowager of Conti was Marie Anne de Bourbon, a daughter of Louis XIV, widowed in 1685. 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.