Hudson painted a lot of this same portrait for different women, plus there were versions with the gown in other colors. And in general, painters of the 18th century had this idea, and the big name painter would do the sitting with the lady and paint her face, hands, and general aspect. Then the work would be sent to a “drapery painter” like Joseph Van Aken who filled in the clothing and background. I suspect the women never wore these costumes, and the outfits were made up by the drapery painters, either by interpreting Rubens and other 17th-century works or perhaps by looking at example garments. But given how so many of these have almost identical clothing (there’s a lot more than what I show here!), I think the painter just figured it out once and copied it.
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- 1635 – Hélène Fourment by Peter Paul Rubens
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- 1730s – Margaret, Countess of Orford, by a follower of Herman van der Mijn
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- 1731 – Portrait of a lady by John Vanderbank
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- 1741 – Lady Frances Courtenay by Thomas Hudson
I loved the idea of this fantasy made-up dress where one era looks back on another one! It’s what we do with our own “historical recreations” after all.
At first, I thought I might make this dress for our Chateau de Pys trip back in 2013, and Kendra even gave me some black silk satin that’d be perfect for the dress. But the idea languished … for a decade! until this year, when Kendra and others thought it’d be fun to do this as a theme for their Fete Galante costumes. So out went my idea of finishing Leonard’s pink suit, and I dug out that fabric I’d been saving, plus the jewelry, and all the research.
I started inside out, with the smock which has a ruff at the neck and then full sleeves gathered up by ribbons. I made the ruff in the standard 16th-c. fashion with tight gathers and starch, and I sewed the ribbon down, making structured bows.
Then I patterned the bodice starting with a 16th-c. shape over my 18th-c. corset, which evens out to 17th-c. right? The black silk satin required a lot of hand-sewing, which was tedious and annoying (as always but even more so because this fabric was horribly bouncy).
The skirt was just as annoying to sew because it was primarily by hand and in some particularly fussy ways to get that waist seem to look smooth. I’d decided on a softly panniered look and made new hip pads to go under the gown. Then I concentrated the cartridge pleats at the sides, leaving the center front flat.
The accessories were easier and more fun. I’d been saving these jewelry bits forever to go with this gown, all I had to do was wire everything together. I found the two brooches on eBay.
The hat was also simple — I bought a felt hat and steamed and tacked it into shape, decorating with the same purple ribbon as on my smock’s sleeves and tons of white ostrich feathers that I curled. Kendra had given me a pale purple wig that she was tired of, so I tucked it up under the hat since it’d go with my own purple hair.
I got the entire outfit finished except for hemming the gown’s skirt. And I tried it on … and I hated it!
Granted, I couldn’t lace it up fully closed in the back by myself, so it’s not as fitted as it should be. But that’s not the biggest problem in my eyes. It just looks SO PLAIN. It’s dull. It’s boring. Even with the accessories, this is just a boring black dress! Why did I think this would be good on me? I’m totally NOT a “simple elegant” kind of person, not in my everyday clothes and not in my costumes. I like trim, print, texture, decoration, shiny doo-dads. This is just meh. If I added a boatload of black lace, sure! I also think some kind of hanging sleeve in black silk would be more interesting than this faux-peasant blouse thing.
Unfortunately, this was two weeks before Fete Galante, so I didn’t have time to redo this costume since that’d require planning and more materials. I went with a dress from my closet, which worked out better and I felt more like me. This one is now in the UFO pile…