Collection of French Costume Designs or Portrait Types; Title Page
Medium
Pen and black ink, graphite, gouache
Dimensions
Sheet: 6 5/8 x 9 7/8 in. (16.9 x 25.1 cm)
Classification
Drawings|Ornament & Architecture
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1957
Accession Number
57.559.6(1r)
Tags
Art Historical Context
This elegant title page, part of a *Collection of French Costume Designs Portrait Types*, dates to 1785–90 and hails from late 18th-century France Created by anonymous French artists, with contributions possibly from Antoine Caire-Mand, it serves as an inviting introduction to a series capturing the height of pre-Revolutionary fashion and portraiture. Adorning the page are delicate garlands of roses and female portraits, evoking the refined ornamental style of the era, when lavish costumes and idealized women symbolized social elegance under Louis XVI. Crafted with pen and black ink, graphite...
About the Artist
Anonymous, French, 18th century|Antoine Caire-Morand|Anonymous, French, 19th century · 1700–1800
The artist known as Anonymous, French, 18th century, represents a collective of unidentified talents active roughly between 1700 and 1800, a period of profound artistic evolution in France from the opulent Rococo to the austere dawn of Neoclassicism and Revolutionary fervor. Little is documented about their personal training or mentors, as their anonymity obscures individual biographies, though th...