In an elegantly decorated bedroom, a young woman with hair piled high in the fashion of the 1770s, holds tightly to a bedpost, while a man (her servant or husband) tugs on her stay-laces, and is in turn held around his waist by a female servant, who is also grasped by a small Black servant. The lady's lapdog looks on from the bed, while a monkey on the floor opens a book entitled "Fashion's victim: a satire"
Alternative Title:
Fashion before ease
Description:
Title from item., Date of printing based on watermark., Place of publication and publisher from British Museum catalogue., Imperfect, trimmed to design with loss of publication information and plate number., Originally issued by Carington Bowles after June 1777, then re-issued (with date burnished from the plate) by Bowles & Carver., Plate number: 362. Cf. Untrimmed impression in the British Museum., and Watermark: 1812.
Publisher:
Printed for & sold by Bowles & Carver ... No.69 in St. Pauls Church Yard, London
Subject (Topic):
Corsets, Fashion, Dogs, Monkeys, Beds, Bedrooms, and Tug of war
Darly, Matthias, approximately 1720-approximately 1778, printmaker
Published / Created:
March 1, 1777.
Call Number:
777.03.01.04+
Image Count:
1
Abstract:
A small-waisted lady with towering coiffure topped by a beribboned hat stands in her boudoir holding onto post of canopy bed, as her footman, bracing his foot on her rump, tightens her stays. A decorative carpet is visible underfoot, and her dressing table may be seen to the left
Alternative Title:
Hold fast behind
Description:
Title from item., MD of publisher's name form a monogram., and Numbered in plate at top: 29, V. 2.
In a cobbler's workshop a shoemaker has seized his wife by the arm and is about to beat her with a leather strap. Her partly laced stays are being tightened by the weight of the cobblers hammer. She wears her hair in the monumental fashion, and her high heels are visible beneath the hem of a quilted skirt. To the left is a chair beneath a casement window, while a bird in a cage is suspended from the ceiling on the right
Alternative Title:
Cobler's wife in the fashion and Cobbler's wife in the fashion
Description:
Title from item. and Eight lines of verse in 2 columns below image beginning: "The hoity head & toity waist, As now they're all the ton ..."
Publisher:
Published Novr. 4th 1777 by Wm. Hitchcock No.5 Birchin Lane
