Coloured Plates of the Latest Fashions, London & Paris
No place listed: Not stated, No date [c. 1801-1830s]. Full leather. [FASHION] [ALBUM]. Spine title: Coloured Plates of the Latest Fashions
8vo; horizontal ribbed brown Morocco with gilt borders and ornaments; 5 banded spine with gilt ornaments, red leather title label; all edges gilt; gilt dentelles, heavy marbled endpapers; frontispiece + 54 hand-colored engraved plates, 50 mounted to cream-colored stock with tissue guards, 5 larger plates not mounted but bound-in; fine. Fine. Item #1443
The album appears to have been compiled as a personal collection of women’s fashions, with each plate carefully excised and mounted on heavy cream-colored paper stock with a debossed border plate line. Twelve prints with dated titles on the illustrations begin with “Morning Dress for Jan.y 1801” and end with “Afternoon Dress for June, 1801.” These are followed by fifteen plates, dated 1805-1807, printed by Vernor, Hood and Sharp, Poultry. This publisher is sometimes identified as only Vernor & Hood, and later as Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe, and was located at 31 Poultry in London from 1799-1809. One plate is hand-dated 1826 and two are dated 1831 in small neat pencil. Eleven plates follow with no date or publisher, then five more lacking dates but marked with the printer’s name, Joseph Robins, Bride Court, London. There are four illustrations from Ladies Pocket Magazine, 1831. The album concludes with five bound-in plates lacking date but marked “Invented by Mrs. Bell, No. 26 Charlotte Street, Bloomsbury.” Mrs. Bell was the proprietor of Magazine des Modes, as well as a milliner, dress, and corset maker. (Allen 2020)
The album is an extraordinary collection of early 19th century fashions of well-dressed English women.
Price: $3,200.00