Woman near Antwerp, Flemish Dress, Antique Ackermann Print, 1817

An original antique engraving, colored by hand, from Miss Semple's The Costume of the Netherlands, lettered "Woman of the neighborhood of Antwerp". An elderly countrywoman stands leaning on a long staff, wearing a stiff straw bonnet that shades her face and a pale blue green mantle sprigged with a small pattern, over a pink apron and a long brown skirt. From her left hand hangs a round open wicker basket shaped like a cage, with something gray inside. A leafy bush grows at the left, and the sandy ground carries her shadow to the right.

The caption is engraved in script below the image as "Woman of the neighborhood of Antwerp", 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.