Woman and Child of Friesland, Frisian Dress, Antique Ackermann Print, 1817

An original antique engraving, colored by hand, from Miss Semple's The Costume of the Netherlands, lettered "Woman & Child of Friesland". A woman sits in a wooden chair at her needlework, drawing a long thread from a stocking or cloth in her lap, with a green work basket holding a ball of yarn on the floor at her side. She wears a white cap with a lace edging falling to her shoulders, gold earrings, a coral necklace, a light blue sprigged jacket and a full white apron, with buckled shoes. Beside her a little girl in a lace edged cap and a brown jacket sits with a book open on her lap, looking up at the woman, in a white apron spotted with pink over a dark skirt. The floor is drawn as plain boards.

The caption is engraved in script below the image as "Woman & Child of Friesland", and beneath it is the publisher's imprint "Published Jan.y 1-1817, at R. Ackermann's, 101 Strand." No artist's or engraver's name is lettered on the plate; the drawings for the series are credited to Miss Semple on the title of the work.

The plate belongs to The Costume of the Netherlands, published in 1817 at Rudolph Ackermann's Repository of Arts, 101 Strand, London. The title of the work describes it as displayed in thirty colored engravings after drawings from nature by Miss Semple, with descriptions in English and French. Its figures cover the Dutch provinces, Flanders and Brabant, and the French border country around Valenciennes, each shown in everyday working or market dress rather than in formal portraiture. Ackermann issued many of the best known illustrated books of Regency London, and the plates of this work were colored by hand after printing.

The figure sits well in a simple narrow frame with a wide mount, and plates from the same work make a coherent group on one wall.

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