Women of Willemstad taking Tea, Antique Ackermann Print, 1817

An original antique hand colored engraving after Miss Semple, lettered "Women of Williamstadt.", from The Costume of the Netherlands published by Rudolph Ackermann in London in 1817. Two women share a small wooden side table on turned legs. The one standing behind it, in a white cap with a gold ear ornament, a white kerchief, a rust brown jacket and a long gray green apron over a pink skirt, pours from a metal kettle into a small pot, with a cup and saucer beside it. The other sits with her back to the viewer on a ladder back chair with ball finials, lifting the lid of the small pot, in a white cap, a cream jacket sprigged with pink and green flowers, a white apron and a dark plum gray skirt.

The engraved caption below the image reads "Women of Williamstadt." and beneath it runs the imprint "Publish'd Jan.y 1, 1817, at R. Ackermann's, 101, Strand.". The plate carries no engraver's signature, and the drawings for the whole series are credited on the title page to Miss Semple.

The plate belongs to The Costume of the Netherlands, published in London in 1817 by Rudolph Ackermann at his Repository of Arts, 101 Strand. The title page announces thirty colored engravings after drawings from nature by Miss Semple, with descriptions in English and French, and the plates carry imprints dated in the course of 1817. Each figure or group is set on a small washed patch of ground against the open paper, with the caption engraved in a copperplate script below. Ackermann (1764 to 1834), a German born publisher and print seller working in London, issued many illustrated books with hand colored plates, as well as the periodical The Repository of Arts.

A single plate suits a narrow frame with a generous mat, and several plates from the series hang well together as a group of Dutch street and household scenes.

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