“London Opera Dress”, La Belle Assemblée, February 1820
Mantilla of black levantine, lined throughout, and with a pelerine cape of ponçeau plume silk, over a dress, superbly finished, of white satin. Opera toque turban of ponçeau velvet, beautifully intermixed with white satin, and ornamented richly with fine pearls, and three drooping white feathers.
And from the corresponding General Observations on Fashions and Dress:
Black velvet pelisses are also much in favour for the promenade … For the carriage we have seen a beautiful levantine pelisse of violet colour, trimmed with feathered silk, with a pelerine of the same to correspond, and the pelisse lined throughout with white satin.
“THE VOLITO, or Summer and Winter Skait. For Amusement in cold weather without Ice and is equally useful on stones, boards, roads etc. NB the three different wheels fit into the same skait.”
(HT The Georgian Gentleman | Get your skates on! A history of Skeelers, Volitos and In-liners.. with the image from Lewis Walpole Library)
from L’Observateur des Modes No. 479, handcoloured print, published in Paris, 1818-1823. Hairstyle decorated with feathers, smooth crepe and branches of an olive tree; the composition of Mr. Peulier, Hairdresser of S.A.R.M. Madame Duchesse de Berry. Wrap is furnished for autumn with crepe weave rods and satin nodes; cashmere fur-lined coat of India doublee of satin and furnished with grebe…
Tower of Cardiff Church Glamorganshire from Gentleman’s Magazine January 1818
Regency lady writing letters.
Writing letters was a major genteel occupation every day for the lady and with numerous postal deliveries in London messages could be exchanged with almost modern speed. This charming lady (Ackermann 1813) is wearing morning dress and a pretty cap while she catches up with her correspondence.
James Gillray, Matrimonial-Harmonics, ca. 1805, Etching, hand colored, Morgan LIbrary and Museum, New York
From the Morgan Library and Museum website:
An unhappily married couple torment each other in the breakfast-room. The lady has left her seat to thump on the piano and sing loudly while her husband sits on the sofa with his hand over his ear, food stuffed into his mouth, reading the ’Sporting Calendar’. The pages of her open music-book are headed ’Forte’. Her song is: ’Torture Fiery Rage / Despair I cannot can not bear’. On the piano lies music: ’Separation a Finale for Two Voices with Accompaniment’; on the floor is ’The Wedding Ring - a Dirge’. A nurse hastens into the room holding a squalling infant, and flourishing a rattle. On the lady’s chair is an open book, ’The Art of Tormenting’, illustrated by a cat playing with a mouse. Under the man’s feet lies a dog barking fiercely at an angry cat, poised on the back of the sofa, and within a hanging birdcage two cockatoos screech angrily at each other, neglecting a nest of three young ones. Beside them on the wall is a bust of ’Hymen’ with a broken nose, and a thermometer that has sunk almost to ’Freezing’. On the chimney-piece is a carved ornament: Cupid asleep under a weeping willow, his torch reversed, the arrows falling from his quiver.
Girl Sketching (c. 1810). Sir Henry Raeburn (Scotland, Romanticism, 1756-1823). Oil on canvas. Sudley House, National Museums, Liverpool.
The identity of the girl is unknown. She is wearing a simple muslin dress gathered under the bust, typical of the Regency period. She looks up from her sketch with a dreamy expression. There is an almost throwaway quality about the way the paint is applied. This studied informality, together with the restrained colour and soft yet naturalistic fall of light, are characteristic of the artist.
Girl Sketching, by Sir Henry Raeburn, 1811
