Figure 25.—Man of quality at the court of Louis XIV. Engraving by Jean de St. Jean, 1693. (Courtesy of Victoria & Albert Museum, London.)
The decorative character of these distinguished prints was often enhanced by “dressing” or overlaying them with small pieces of fabric, lace, or paper.[35] The finest series of such prints is that in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York City. In figure 26, the outlines of the engraving were carefully cut with a
knife, and selected pieces of small-pattern fabrics were mounted on stiff paper forming an underlay to the print.
Figure 26.—Dressed print, ca. 1695. The engraving of Madame la Duchesse d’Aumont is embellished with small pieces of velvet, figured silk, and lace. (Courtesy of The Pierpont Morgan Library.)
In England, there was no fashion journalism or series of prints that can be regarded as illustrations of late 17th-century fashion. Some use can be made of the engravings after Marcellus Laroon, which were first sold separately and later published in 1711 as the Cryes of London,[36] to illustrate costume in England, but neither these nor the illustrations of English men and women which appear in general works on the costume of Europe can be accepted as fashion plates. Other series, such as the plates on the dress of Augsburg engraved by Jeremias Wolff, belong more to
the history of costume than to the history of fashion.
In the early years of the 18th century, Bernard Picard, best known for his great illustrated work on the religions of the world, made a few small and very neat engravings of fashionable ladies, which were published in Amsterdam in the 1720s. These engravings, some dated 1703, should not be classed as fashion plates; like the Le Clerc engraving of the man in rhinegrave breeches ([fig. 15]), they are from drawing books. Some of them, part reengraved by G. Bickham, Jr., were reissued in London after 1732.[37]
In Paris there was a revival of the fashion plate in the late 1720s. The still-existing Mercure de France, direct successor of the Mercure Galant, carried an occasional fashion article with engravings of dress accessories. In March 1729 (fig. 27), there is a not-very-well-defined sketch of a lady with her page, meeting a gentleman. The accompanying paragraphs are not valuable but contain a recommendation for “garnitures” to be had from La Demoiselle Perronet, in the Cour Abbatial of St. Germain des Pres. As for “coeffures et têtes . . . on les coeffe sur une poupée.”