The Fashion Historian

In the early sixteenth century, men were all about width. Their wardrobe emphasized and enhanced the width of the body, giving a very powerful presence. In today's head to toe post, we'll find out how this look was created.

Portrait of Henry VIII, after Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1537. In the collection of the Walker Art Gallery.

Here we see the imposing figure of Henry VIII, who ruled England from 1509 to 1547. On his head he wears a biretta, a soft, round, and wide hat. These could be decorated with jewels and feathers, as seen in this portrait.

Henry's basic foundation garment is a white shirt, the collar and cuffs of which can be seen in his painting. Little puffs of undershirt are also visible in the slashing which decorates his outer garments. Over the shirt he wears a doublet, a waist length, tightly fitted garment which opened down the center front. Doublets could be elaborately decorated with slashing and jewels, as can be seen in this image.

On top of the doublet is a jerkin. The jerkin fit over the waist like a vest, with a deep V or U shaped neckline. Below the waist, the jerkin flared out into a skirt. It's a little difficult to differentiate between Henry's jerkin and doublet, but the image below better illustrates the idea. The Ambassador to the left wears a pink doublet and black jerkin.

The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1533. In the collection of the National Gallery, London.

The bulky overcoat worn over the doublet and jerkin is a box coat, so called because it's shaped like a box. Often stuffed with straw to give volume, the box coat featured huge sleeves which gave men a wide and powerful silhouette. Often they were lined in fur, as can be seen in both images (Henry's box coat is lined in brown fur, while the Ambassador's coat is lined with white).

The legs were covered with hose, which had become two separate pieces. Upper stocks covered the top half of the leg, while lower stocks covered the bottom. The differentiation between the two pieces is particularly clear in Henry's portrait. The emphasis on width is continued all the way down to the shoes, called duckbill shoes. Duckbill shoes were flat and square in front, made of leather, and could be slashed for decoration.

The Little Black Dress, or LBD, is one of the staples of the 20th century woman's wardrobe. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the LBD as "a simple black garment suitable for a woman to wear at most kinds of relatively formal social engagements." But where did this style come from?

Portrait of a Young Woman with a Fan by Rembrandt, 1633. In the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

According to the OED, the first use of the phrase was in 1902, in Henry James' The Wings of the Dove: "She might fairly have been dressed tonight in the little black frock..that Milly had laid aside." Of course, by the 20th century, women had been wearing black dresses for hundreds of years. Traditionally, black dye was one of the most expensive dyes and difficult colors to maintain, thus it served as a signifier of wealth. Many people were painted in black in the 16th and 17th centuries, but it wasn't because they were particularly conservative. It was to express their wealth, showing that they could afford the most costly garments.

Actress Joan Bennett wearing a Little Black Dress in 1928. Image: Sasha, Getty1.

Most people trace the modern idea of the Little Black Dress to the 1920s. The LBD is most famously associated with Coco Chanel, but it is worth noting that Chanel did not invent the Little Black Dress. She helped to popularize the LBD, it was an important part of her fashion aesthetic, and Chanel's Little Black Dresses are important to the history of fashion. But Chanel was neither the first nor the only designer to embrace the style in the 1920s. British designer Edward Molyneux was also crucial to the promotion of the LBD, and many designers had their own take on it. In 1926, Vogue published a picture of a Chanel LBD. Although it was not referred to as a "Little Black Dress", Vogue did call it "Chanel's Ford", implying that the style was as popular and indispensable as Ford's famous cars. Many historians consider this moment important in the history of the LBD.

Audrey Hepburn wearing a Little Black Dress by Givenchy in Breakfast at Tiffany's, 1961.

One of the most famous Little Black Dresses is the stunning dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961). Hepburn's famous dress was designed by her frequent collaborator, Hubert de Givenchy. Although this dress only appears during the opening credits of the movie, it has become one of the most iconic movie costumes of all time and helped to cement the LBD's place in history.

I don't know very much about contemporary art. It's not really my thing. And when I went to see Bound Unbound: Lin Tianmiao at the Asia Society, I knew absolutely nothing about the artist or her place in the world of Chinese contemporary art. But I was intrigued by this exhibition because the majority of the works on display significantly used textiles. I'm not sure if I "got it" or if any contemporary art critic would agree with my interpretation of Tianmiao's art. But I think one of the great things about art is that you bring your own history and experiences to the art you view, thus coloring your own interpretation. So here is the interpretation of contemporary art by a fashion historian.



Bound Unbound: Lin Tianmiao, at the Asia Society until January 27, 2013, showcases the work of Chinese artist Lin Tianmiao. Tianmiao’s work uses thread and textiles, along with other media, to create sculptural pieces exploring concepts of the human body. Her work is inspired by memories of her childhood in China, when she would help her mother sew clothes for the family. According to the introductory text of the exhibition, Tianmiao’s works “are as much about her personal journey as an artist as they are about a desire to articulate broader social issues. Through her focus on the female experience, she comments on the enormous social progress made in Chinese society during Mao Zedong’s tenure, yet she hints that some promises remain unfulfilled." Her work also explores the concept of dualities. According to the exhibition press release, “These are frequently played out in her works through contrasts between materials, but they are also evident in binary themes such as male versus female, function versus form, and physical versus psychological experience.” Within my personal experience of the exhibition, I was particularly struck by the unique interaction between textile and human form.



Much of Tianmiao’s work uses a technique called thread winding, in which “she winds silk or cotton thread around an object until it is completely covered and ultimately transformed.” In pieces such as All The Same (2011), Tianmiao wraps bones from the human body in different colored threads, creating a rainbow of bones. In other works, she covers human forms and other objects with pieces of silk. To me, these works showed an exploration of the relationship between the human body and its textile covering. The drive to clothe the body is shared by almost all societies on the planet. It is one of the things that unites us as people. I found Tianmiao’s work a reflection of this idea. Despite any cultural differences, at our core we are all made of the same bones, take the same basic shape. Wrapping these basic foundations of humanity in thread and fabric reflects the idea that, like bones and bodies, clothing is also a basic foundation of humanity.

You can learn more about the artist and her work at the exhibition website.

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Baudelaire on Fashion
Part 3: Tissot's Paintings

Tissot was intimately connected with fashion. One writer remarked, “At present time in England, Mr. James Tissot and Mr. George du Maurier exercise considerable control over the fashions.” Another wrote that Tissot “seems to have devoted himself chiefly to recording the fleeting fashions and affectations of modern costume, sometimes choosing for this purpose the most bizarre and the most hideous… the heads are quite subordinate to the turbulent mass of millinery which occupies the principle part of the canvas."

James Tissot. Too Early. 1873. Oil on canvas. London: Guildhall Art Gallery

James Tissot. Hush! 1875. Oil on canvas. Manchester: City of Manchester Art Galleries.

James Tissot. The Ball on Shipboard. 1874. Oil on canvas. London: Tate Gallery.

One of the most curious aspects of the three works I'm analyzing is the repetition of dresses, both within each painting and within the group as a whole. The woman who dominates the center of the canvas in Too Early wears a light salmon-pink dress with burgundy trim, the skirt falling in endless layers of ruffles. In the same work, a woman can be seen ascending the stairs, the coloring of dress and trim suggesting the same garment. The same dress is also worn by the woman sitting closest to the violinist in Hush!. The layers of ruffles and burgundy trim are also on a snippet of garment viewable at the edge of the canvas. The same dress is seen three times in The Ball on Shipboard, worn by a woman climbing the stairs, a seated woman, and a woman walking with a gentleman.

James Tissot. The Ball on Shipboard. 1874. Oil on canvas. London: Tate Gallery.

The Ball on Shipboard presents the most obvious set of duplicates. The two women standing by the railing wear identical dresses of white with black trim. In a group seated in the back corner, two women wear identical green dresses while another two wear low cut light blue dresses. These light blue dresses also look very similar to the gown worn by the subject of The Bunch of Lilacs (1875), and the two central figures in In the Conservatory (The Rivals) (The pink and burgundy dress also makes another appearance in this work).

Several explanations have been suggested for this repetition. Sometimes twins or sisters dressed alike. The repetition may have been derived from the multiple views of a single dress shown in fashion plates of the period. It may suggest the social faux pas of multiple women wearing the same dress at a social event. Or it may suggest a passage of time, with a single woman moving to different parts of the canvas. One of the most popular explanations is that Tissot had a limited number of actual dresses which he used as studio props, and so he simply repeated them in his various paintings.

However, the most compelling argument is that this repetition is a commentary on society and a reflection of Baudelaire’s modernity. Nancy Rose Marshall argues that “this sort of repetition suggested that ‘Woman’ in 1870s society was little more than a mass-produced commodity.” With the popularity of the department store and the rise of the ready-to-wear clothing industry, fashion was becoming more homogenized and democratized. Class lines were no longer easily distinguishable through dress. Women could purchase garments which were fashionable, but mass produced. While in previous centuries luxury was relegated to the few, increasingly in the nineteenth century luxury—or at least an appearance of luxury—could be gained by the many. As noted by Baudelaire, a womans dress was connected with her very being, thus indicating that a woman in a mass produced dress is a mass produced figure herself. This idea is reflected in the fashion in Tissot’s art, the repetition of clothing creating duplicates. The women are literally mass produced. Continuing in this line of reasoning, the women then become commodities, just like the clothing they wear. Their fashion sells the woman. As one commentator wrote, “The reason for the present extraordinary luxury in dress is that the surplus million of women are husband-hunting and resort to extra attractions to that end.” In the case of the women in Too Early, The Ball on Shipboard, and Hush!, the ostentation of their dress suggests that what they are promoting is their wealth and new status in society.

Tissot’s paintings emphasize the artificiality of society through the artificiality of fashion. As one writer wrote in 1867, it was an “age of shams”. He continues, saying “unreality creeps into everything… the consequence is that woman has become an imposture and men have learned to fear that what they most admire may be but a successful art.” With the elaborate construction of fashion in the early 1870s, women had literally become scaffolding on which to display ideas of wealth and beauty. Yet for the nouveau riche, this was a false portrayal, masking the reality of a newly emerging upper class which did not fully understand the rules of society. This was the reality of modernity, or at least the perceived reality of social commentators.

Selected Bibliography
Ash, Russell. James Tissot. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1992.

Baudelaire, Charles. The Painter of Modern Life. Translated by Jonathan Mayne. London: Phaidon Press, 1986.

Garb, Tamar. Bodies of Modernity: Figure and Flesh in Fin-de-Siecle France. New York: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1998.

Hollander, Anne. Fabric of Vision: Dress and Drapery in Painting. London: National Gallery Company Limited, 2002.

Marshall, Nancy Rose. “’Transcripts of Modern Life’: The London Paintings of James Tissot 1871-1882.” PhD diss., Yale University, 1997.

Marshall, Nancy Rose and Malcolm Warner. James Tissot: Victorian Life/Modern Love. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.

Perrot, Philippe. Fashioning the Bourgeoisie: A History of Clothing in the Nineteenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.

Simon, Marie. Fashion in Art: The Second Empire and Impressionism. London: Zwemmer, 1995.

Wood, Christopher. Tissot. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1986.

Myth: It is ancient tradition that each of the clans of Scotland has it's own unique tartan.

The lords of three Scottish clans from Disney/Pixar's movie Brave (2012).

Sadly, this is a myth. I've always thought it was rather fun to find the family tartan. But this 'tradition' is actually the result of a 19th century marketing scheme to capitalize on the popularity of the romanticized Highlander myth.

The colorful tartan pattern seems to have originated in Flanders and came to the Highlands through the Lowlands. Sixteenth century writers note that the plaids of chiefs were colored and those of their followers were brown, indicating that any differentiation in color was a mark of social status rather than being connected with a particular clan. The clan system itself had been destroyed after the Scottish rebellion of 1745, when acts of Parliament removed chiefs from their jurisdictions and banned any Highland costume. This last act wasn't lifted until 1782, at which point the general population of the Highlands, having become used to trousers, didn't see any reason to return to the traditional belted plaid or tartan, or the new convenient kilts (invented in 1727, a topic for another post!) The upper classes, on the other hand, enthusiastically picked up the traditional garb reclaiming their lost 'heritage'.

The romantic movement had swept in, bringing with it the cult of the noble savage. The endangered traditional Highlander fit perfectly into this romantic notion. Romanticized Scottish history was given a further boost when King George IV made a momentous visit to Edinburgh in 1822. The King wished to see Highlanders in their traditional garb, and thus created a huge demand for tartans. The biggest manufacturing firm was William Wilson and Son of Bannockburn. Messrs., which released a "Key Pattern Book" in 1819 when the royal visit was first announced, showing samples of their various tartans and which clan they belonged to. When the King finally arrived in Scotland, he himself was dressed in a kilt and gave a toast to "the chieftains and clans of Scotland."

But the most important figures in the creation of clan tartans were the brothers Allen, an eccentric pair who often appeared at fashionable events dressed "in all the extravagance of which the Highland costume is capable-- every kind of tag and rag, false orders and tinsel ornaments." In 1829 they presented their aristocratic patron, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, with a manuscript entitled "Vestiarium Scoticum", or The Garde-robe of Scotland. According to the brothers, this manuscript had belonged to John Leslie, Bishop of Rosss, the confidant of Mary Queen of Scots. Supposedly it had been written much earlier by a knight named Sir Richard Urquhart, and featured descriptions of the different clan tartans. But it wasn't until 1842, and under the new patronage of Lord Lovat, that the Vestiarium was published in a lavish limited edition with colored illustrations. Then in 1844, the Allen brothers published an even more lavish folio, titled "The Costume of the Clans", which cited ancient sources and claimed that Highland dress was actually a relic of the universal dress of the Middle Ages.

Unfortunately for the Allen brothers, their works received little notice. They themselves were discredited in 1847. After making numerous claims of royal blood, the brothers, who had at this point changed their name to Sobieski Stuart, were exposed as phonies in an editorial in the Quarterly Review. The brothers never recovered, and their works never gained a great amount of publicity. However, the idea of clan tartans was growing ever more popular, and the rest of the century saw the publication of numerous books of clan tartans, all derived from the Vestiarium.


There is so much more fascinating detail to this story than what I have put here, so if you'd like to learn more I highly recommend the article The Highlander Myth by Hugh Trevor Roper.

Photo Credit

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Baudelaire on Fashion


Too Early (1873) is one of Tissot’s most celebrated and famous works. Louise Jopling, an artist and friend of Tissot, wrote that the painting “made a great sensation” when it was shown at the Royal Academy in 1873. She continued in her praise, saying that the painting was “a new departure in art, this witty representation of modern life.” Too Early shows a snapshot in time, a moment of awkward embarrassment in which guests have arrived too early to a party. As proclaimed by contemporary etiquette, “A ballroom should be entered at an hour suited to the habits of those who invite you. It is extremely inconvenient however, to be too early, as you may disconcert your friends.” The hostess administers last minute instructions to the musicians, while her guests fidget and avoid eye contact. In the back corner, too servants peer through a slightly opened door, seeming to laugh at the awkwardness of the scene before them. This social faux pas indicates that the guests are only pretenders, members of the nouveau riche with plenty of money but none of the social graces of a true aristocrat. Critics praised Too Early for this “truthfulness and delicate perception of the humor of the ‘situation,’ for a parallel to which we must look in the novels of Jane Austen, the great painter of humor in ‘polite society.’”


Hush! (1875) presents another snapshot, perhaps from a later moment at the party seen in Too Early. Like the previous painting, critics found themselves able to identify with the scene. “This is a picture which cannot fail to interest the majority of the visitors to the academy, because it deals with incidents and people with which the are abundantly familiar,” wrote one. Although all the guests have arrived, they still appear vastly uncomfortable. No one is interested in the impending performance, too concerned are they with appearing fashionably nonchalant. The sweeping curve of the staircase, viewed through a back doorway, and the circle of chairs around the violinist suggest a literal social circle, into which the viewer is invited. The room depicted is a salon in Kensington, and the party has been identified as one hosted by the Coope family and attended by Tissot. Although Tissot claimed the subjects were anonymous, scholars have identified various real figures: Sir Jules Benedict (the pianist), artists Giuseppe de Nittis and Ferdinant Heilbuth, and Vanity Fair publisher Thomas Gibson Bowles. Hush! was Tissot’s greatest commercial success, selling for 1200 guineas.


The Ball on Shipboard (1874) presents a different, although no less awkward, social scene. The painting is set on the royal yacht, the Victoria and Albert, at Cowes on the Isle of Wight. The ship is decorated with various national flags, and various members of London society have gathered for socializing and dancing. Yet once again, there is an overtone of boredom. The woman closest to the viewer, wearing a black and white striped gown, stares blankly into the distance. Two women in matching white dresses stand awkwardly, looking away from each other with neutral expressions while their elderly companion leans lazily against a railing.

Critical reception to The Ball on Shipboard was negative. The work was described as “vulgar”, a loaded term in the nineteenth century. According to John Ruskin, vulgarity could be defined as “an undue regard to appearances and manners… and an assumption of behavior, language, or dress, unsuited to them, by persons in inferior stations of life.” Indeed, although the figures on the ship seem to be members of good society, a deeper analysis suggests otherwise. The women in green and blue, seated in the background on the left of the canvas, display too much décolletage for the daytime. One commentator described the image as “a set of rather showy than elegant costumes, some few graceful, but more ungraceful attitudes, and not a lady in a score of female figures.” Furthermore, the gowns worn by many of the women are unnecessarily showy, with bright colors and multiple ruffles, suggesting the ‘vulgar’ ostentation associated with social climbers and the nouveau riche. These elements combine to suggest the instability of society of the period, where wealth was replacing heredity, an uneasy notion for many.

Part 1: Introduction



Tissot’s London paintings provide a detailed and nuanced look at contemporary society. He captures ‘modernity’, a word coined by Baudelaire in The Painter of Modern Life (1863). For Baudelaire, an important element of this modernity was the correct representation of contemporary fashion. He writes:

“The draperies of Rubens or Veronese will in no way teach you how to depict mouire antique, satin a la reine or any other fabric of modern manufacture, which we see supported and hung over crinoline or starched muslin petticoat… Finally the gesture and the bearing of the woman of today give to her dress a life and a special character which are not those of the woman of the past. In short, for any ‘modernity’ to be worthy of one day taking its place as ‘antiquity’, it is necessary for the mysterious beauty which human life accidentally puts into it to be distilled from it.”

Baudelaire places emphasis on fashion and beauty, citing it as one of the key visual indicators of modernity. He argues that for a work of art to take its place in the annals of history, a human essence and sense of life must be present. The artist can best portray this intangible concept through capturing his surroundings, for example, the clothes, gestures, and particular beauty associated with that particular moment in time. It is that which the artist is most familiar with, which the artist truly understands, because that is the context in which the artist lives. As Nancy Rose Marhsall summarizes, “The clothing of the body in fashion, a procedure representing its socialization, worked to locate the female form in a particular moment, removing it from the realm of the ideal and investing it with cultural and historical specificity—with modernity, in fact, which Tissot embraced.”

Baudelaire places such an emphasis on fashion because he associates it with the essence of humanity itself. The artist must represent contemporary fashion because fashion is an essential part of humanity, and it is through fashion that this can be seen. He particularly focuses on women, writing:

“Everything that adorns woman, everything that serves to show off her beauty, is part of herself; and those artists who have made a particular study of this enigmatic being dote no less on all the details of the mandus muliebris than on Woman herself… What poet, in sitting down to paint the pleasure caused by the sight of a beautiful woman, would venture to separate her from her costume?”

Baudelaire's arguments have since become one of the key theories in the field of fashion history, but I believe that is a topic for another post.

I've put these posts on the internet because I want to share them with the world. This is all about the dissemination of knowledge. HOWEVER, these posts take a lot of time and effort to put together and many represent my own personal research findings. So if you'd like to copy and paste a quote to your own blog/tumblr/whatever, that's fine, but please don't copy the entire post. I would also appreciate it if you could credit me with my name, Katy Werlin, and a link back to the entry you have quoted.

Thank you.

Another month, another series of posts to give an in depth look at a particular fashion idea. This time, I'll be using Baudelaireian theory to analyze three paintings by James Tissot from the early 1870s. I hope you enjoy it!



In his seminal essay on painting and modernity, Charles Baudelaire wrote of the modern painter: “The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd.” James Tissot embodied this sense of modernity. His paintings of contemporary life read as snapshots into the lives of the upper classes in the late nineteenth century. In particular, three works, Too Early, The Ball on Shipboard, and Hush!, painted in the early 1870s while Tissot was living in London, give a particularly fertile glance into society. These snippets of bourgeois society demonstrate, as Baudelaire wrote, the “fugitive, fleeting beauty of present-day life, the distinguishing character of that quality… we have colled ‘modernity.’” In his essay, Baudelaire emphasizes fashion as a crucial component to modernity. Contemporary fashion is intimately connected to contemporary life, thus giving a living humanity to a painting. Most importantly, fashion is connected with women. Baudelaire writes that contemporary fashion is a part of a womans being, an element which cannot be separated. In his three paintings from the early 1870s, Tissot explores these ideas of modernity and the identity of fashion.

James Tissot painted by Edgar Degas c. 1867-68. In the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Jacques-Joseph Tissot was born on October 15, 1836 in Nantes, France. His father, Marcel-Theodore, was a linen draper and his mother, Marie Durand, was a milliner, exposing Tissot to the world of fashion from his earliest years. He attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he befriended men such as James Whistler and Edgar Degas. However, the man who would have the most influence on his early career was Baron Hendryk Leys, who painted detailed scenes set in Northern Europe in the sixteenth century. Tissot admired the high degree of finish and real human interactions portrayed in Leys’ work. Tissot’s work was first exhibited in 1859, and to keep in line with a recent trend of anglophilia, Anglicized his first name to James. Through the early 1860s, Tissot displayed several ‘costume pieces’, set in previous centuries. In the mid 1860s Tissot broke from his historic style, keeping the focus on human emotions and interactions and a sumptuous materialism, but setting his pieces in the present day. With this work, Tissot finally began to achieve critical success.

In 1871, after the disastrous Franco-Prussian War, Tissot moved to London. He achieved great success, becoming a well-known public figure. In addition to full size paintings, he contributed several caricatures to newly launched Vanity Fair, a publication run by Tissot’s friend Thomas Gibson Bowles. In these sketches Tissot makes gentle mockery of public figures of the day, a theme repeated in his London paintings, which can be seen as a caricature of modern society. In 1876, Tissot met Kathleen Newton, a young divorcee. The two fell in love and began an affair. While many artists of the day had mistresses, few actually lived with them and non painted them with the frequency with which Tissot painted Newton. They lived together until 1882, when Newton died. Emotionally devastated, Tissot left London and returned to Paris. Increasingly interested in spiritualism and religion, Tissot’s art took a religious turn in the mid 1880s. His works on religious subjects were highly admired, once again earning Tissot fame and fortune. In the final years of his life, Tissot became increasingly recluse. He died on August 8, 1902 at Buillon, a private estate inherited from his father.

The gown immediately caught the eye of the Empress, and Worth’s career as the great couturier of the nineteenth century began.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

And here is the conclusion to this study, which I hope you have enjoyed! I had a wonderful time doing this research.



Self Portrait with a Harp, by Rose Adélaïde Ducreux, c. 1791. In the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A consideration of the political situation of September 1791 is also important in analyzing Self Portrait with a Harp. Ducreux’s portrait was displayed at a crucial point in the French Revolution. On June 21-25, the royal family attempted to escape from France, but were caught in the small town of Varennes and brought back to Paris in disgrace. This marks a turning point in the attitudes of the Revolution. While at first the people had been willing to work with the monarchy, functioning under the belief of a good king ill advised, and hoping to create a constitutional monarchy, the royal flight disillusioned them. The thought of the King abandoning his country, combined with a letter left by Louis XVI denouncing the Revolution, caused the public to turn against the monarchy.

The flight of the royal family and their subsequent capture ushered in a brief period of paranoia and a previously unseen radicalism. While the National Assembly was working towards a new constitutional monarchy, the French people demanded Louis XVI abdicate the throne completely. On July 17th, a large group gathered at the Champs de Mars to sign a petition demanding the abdication. The situation grew out of control, and the National Guard arrived, attempting to keep the peace. Shots were fired and several people were killed. The Champs de Mars massacre polarized the nation, with some believing it was an act of peace keeping against dangerous radicals, while others believed it was the monarchy attempting to crush the will of the people.

By September 1791, the same month as the Salon of 1791, a new constitution had been completed, creating a constitutional monarchy. Completed on September 3rd and signed by Louis XVI on September 13th, it represented the hope that the monarchy could work together with the people to restore the glory of France. However, by 1792 the Revolution was falling to pieces and the Reign of Terror would begin the most violent and terrifying period of the Revolution. But in the fall of 1791, this threat had not yet materialized. It was a period of wariness, disappointment with the king, but hope that the political turmoil could finally be resolved.

This was the political context in which Ducreux exhibited her painting. France stood on a precipice, engulfed in feelings of wariness and betrayal, yet hope for a more egalitarian future. Ducreux’s painting embodies the dual ideologies present in this period. The luxury of her garments nods to the tradition of the monarchical system, a system the Revolutionaries currently wanted to preserve with modifications, not completely abolish. The neoclassical style points to the new aesthetics and ideas that were emerging, ideas of democracy and equality. Her inclusion of her harp points to an embracing of traditional gender roles, as espoused by late eighteenth-century thinkers. Thus her painting creates a perfect symbol of the times.

Selected Bibliography

Baker, Keith Michael, editor. Readings in Western Civilization: The Old Regime and the French Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

Duncan, Carol. “Happy Mothers and Other New Ideas in French Art.” The Art Bulletin, Vol. 55, No. 4, (1973): 570-583.

Irwin, David G. Neoclassicism. London: Phaidon, 1997.

Koda, Harold, and Andrew Bolton. Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the Eighteenth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Self Portrait with a Harp.” http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/110000662.

Oppenheimer, Margaret A. “Women Artists in Paris, 1791-1814.” PhD diss., Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 1996.

Ribeiro, Aileen. The Art of Dress: Fashion in England and France 1750-1820. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Ribeiro, Aileen. Dress in Eighteenth Century Europe 1715-1789. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.

Ribeiro, Aileen. Fashion in the French Revolution. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1988.

Rose Adélaïde Ducreux, Self Portrait with a Harp, Salon of 1791. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Sheriff, Mary D. The Exceptional Woman: Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun and the Cultural Politics of Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.

Shovlin, John. The Political Economy of Virtue: Luxury, Patriotism, and the Origins of the French Revolution. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006.

Tackett, Timothy. When the King Took Flight. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003.

Weber, Caroline. Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2006.

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Part 2
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Self Portrait with a Harp, by Rose Adélaïde Ducreux, c. 1791. In the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Between the soft curves abounding in her portrait and the display of musical talent on the harp, Ducreux sends a strong message of her femininity, an important point to note in both the context of the art world and France at large. Painting had traditionally been a male profession, with women artists taking up an extremely small percentage. In 1770, the Royal Académie, which had never welcomed more than a handful of female artists into its membership, placed a quota for four female members. However, women increasingly made an effort to put their works on display, and at the Salon of 1791, twenty two women exhibited their works. While women artists were making great strides towards recognition, they remained the minority. Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Chaussard was alarmed at the 1806 Paris Salon to note that out of 350 artists, fifty were women.

In a broader context, these negative reactions towards women artists reflect the strong reinforcement of gender roles which took place at the end of the eighteenth century. The cult of motherhood became a particular concern, with writers and artists urging women not to pass their children off to a nurse but to rear them personally. Motherhood was espoused as the natural state for women, and, as one writer said, “The sensations experienced by a woman when she becomes a mother are of a kind superior to anything she feels in other circumstances.” This attempt to relegate women to the roles of mothers and nothing else is indicative of this larger trend of strongly defined gender roles. With society being completely restructured in the Age of Revolution, perhaps these strict definitions were a way of clinging to a sense of natural order.

As a female artist, Ducreux inhabited a traditionally male occupation. Although the fine arts were seen as a relatively natural outlet for women, due to their delicate sensibilities, a participation in the fine arts was none the less a step outside the home. Ducreux counters concern about women straying into a male world by emphasizing her femininity in her painting. The soft curves and the demonstrated accomplishment on the harp all signify Ducreux as an accomplished woman, showing off her feminine attributes. Her less radical clothing choice further symbolizes her devotion to traditional femininity. The soft and supple textiles and traditional style of dress portray Ducreux as a woman being a woman, not a woman attempting to enter the male world of personal autonomy and power as Marie Antoinette did.

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Self Portrait with a Harp, by Rose Adélaïde Ducreux, c. 1791. In the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Ducreux’s portrait is in the neoclassical style, an important aesthetic to the Revolution. As opposed to the opulent rococo aesthetic, which had previously dominated the fine arts, neoclassicism valued simplicity and sought to emulate the plain elegance of the art of Ancient Greek and Roman societies. Neoclassicism was important to the ideals of the French Revolution in two respects. Firstly, its simplicity rejected the over-the-top luxury of the rococo aesthetic. It was a style everyone could embrace, not just those rich enough to afford it. It removed the luxury and decoration and left something plain, elegant, and basic. Secondly, it represented both classical and contemporary political equality. The inspiration for neoclassicism was taken from the ruins of Ancient Greece, famously the first democratic society. It was also an aesthetic that started in England, a constitutional monarchy where the people held power over the monarch. Neoclassicism represented an end to consumption by the few at the cost of the many, and the end to an absolute monarchy system, where the people held no power.

Ducreux’s painting features a plain background with an applied column forming the only wall decoration, and on the table next to her sits a Greek-esque vase, all signifiers of neoclassicism. Gone is the circular composition, the unnecessary frills, and rosey color palette of the rococo. Instead, Ducreux’s painting has a strong linear composition, and a mossy, more natural color palette. Neoclassicism was seen as a return to the natural, a theme reflected in the soft yellows, grays, and greens of Ducreux’s painting. She embodies a world not of colorful superfluity, but of sober simplicity. However, there is no harshness in this soberness. The stripes of Ducreux’s dress seem to mirror the column, elongating it into a soft, feminine curve. This, combined with the soft curves of the harp and the vase, detract from the harsh, straight, masculine lines and give the painting a softer, more feminine feel.

Traditional ideas of femininity are also reinforced in the use of the harp as a prop. Although the harp was a popular prop in eighteenth-century portraiture, Ducreux truly was a talented musician as well as painter. Musical talent was an important part of female accomplishment. In 1722 John Essex wrote that music “is certainly a very great Accomplishment to the LADIES; it refines the Taste, polishes the Mind; and is an Entertainment, without other Views, that preserves them from the Rust of Idleness, that most pernicious Enemy to Virtue.” The harp was considered a ‘womans instrument’, as it allowed not only the display of musical virtuosity but display of the female body. The light dancing of fingers across the strings showed off a woman’s hands and the nimbleness of her fingers, and the pedal harp allowed a woman to show off her delicate feet and ankles. Furthermore, the softer sounds produced by the instrument are in line with feminine ideals. It could also be argued that the harp was considered easier to play, as key signatures can be easily set and a consideration of sharps and flats are unnecessary, therefore it was an instrument well suited to the simplicity of the female mind.