Merveilleuse: Chapeau à l’Anglaise, Spencer à l’Anglaise

Horace Vernet

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hand-colored engraving with design for the costume of a Merveilleuse, part of the book "Incroyables et Merveilleuses," with 33 costume plates designed by Horace Vernet and engraved by Georges Jacques Gatine, published ca. 1815 in Paris. The costume in this plate consists of a straw bonnet with a white bow and white ribbon tied around the chin, a Spencer walking dress with long-sleeved pink top and ankle-length white skirt, and yellow flat button-up booties. A soft pink fichu with striped borders executed with a darker shade of pink is tied around the neck, pushing the scallop-edged white lace collar of the dress closer to the chin. The waist is marked by a white belt, tied to form a large bow with loose tails at the back. Green gloves and a closed green parasole with wooden cane complete the outfit.

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art