La Parure des Dames, Plate 7
Mondhare et Jean
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Seventh plate of a set of 12 plates of men's and women's coiffures, containing four designs for women's coiffures. The hairstyles are presented inside four simple, rectangular frames, two of them containing an illustration of the upper body of a woman, two of a man, three of them shown from behind and one of the men shown from the front, wearing a fashionable dress of the 1770s, and matching hairstyles. The first men's hairstyle consists of a black hat in the style of Henry IV, with an undulating brim decorated with strips of gold, bordered also with golden strips, and with a matching golden band; under the hat, his hair hangs down, tied with a black bow, and with two curls on each side. The second men's hairstyle, on the Spanish style named "Genlis" consists of a smaller, round hat, colored with black, and with yellow border and band, decorated with pink bows on the band and the upper part of the hat, where large, yellow and pink feathers stand. The first women's coiffure is extremely elaborate, consisting of a large, light blue hat with ruffled pieces of light blue fabric, decorated with strips of pearls and pink roses, from which hang interlacing ribbons of white color with red, green, and yellow dots, forming bows, and two large columns of light blue fabric with small frames and interlacing motifs, framed by purple ribbons, and separated by a large, purple bow that holds the woman's hair up; a bundle of leaves and roses decorates one side of the hat, and the woman's hair forms curls that frame her face and neck. The second women's coiffure consists of columns of curls separated by a vertical strip of hair decorated with a small, purple ribbon, upon which stands a bundle of large feathers of yellow, purple, and green colors, held together by a large bow of matching colors, and a thin garland of roses and leaves, also purple, yellow, and green, that wraps around the woman's head.
Drawings and Prints
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.