18th century blog

Empress Maria Feodorovna by Voille, 1792.

I’ve been fascinated by Russian dresses of the late 18th century for a while. They have a pretty unusual style and are very beautiful. A lot of them seem pretty similar to the robe à la turque to me, with the “t-shirt” arms, but some seem to have a kind of vest, and the court dress I saw at the Fastes de cour exhibition had yet another vest-like style that I realised looks a bit different to all of these portraits when I looked at the pictures together.

Does anyone know if there are any books on 18th century Russian dress? Though preferably not in Russian :)

More examples »

1770s.

Portrait of a lady, said to be Marie-Madeleine Guimard, called Mademoiselle Guimard, ballerina of the Paris Opéra.

I can’t find any information about the artist Jean-Frederic Schall on the internet, but he did a lot of paintings of dancers, as well as romantic and erotic paintings. Most of the paintings I’ve seen seem to be made in the 1780s. He did some lovely paintings and if you have any tips on where to find more paintings and information do let me know.

More paintings »

I finally sorted through and edited my Jefferson in Paris screencaps. When I wrote about the movie earlier I just showed a few pictures I found on the internet, but after the cut are 145 new screencaps.

Edit: Fixed the screencaps so they won’t take so long to load.

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I just returned from a short trip to Paris where I visited the Fastes de cour exhibition at Versailles. It was an amazing exhibition and I was particularly happy to see a Russian court dress and the most beautiful yellow redingote.

Click the photo above to go to a Flickr set containing my photos from the exhibition, plus some more from Versailles and the Petit Trianon.

Edit: The exhibition ended a couple of days ago.

After the cut are two commercials for Magnum Temptation that I recorded from TV, plus a few screencaps. They feature people in 18th century costumes, some of which are really beautiful. I’m wondering if the costumes were made for these commercials alone (probably not) or if they’re from a movie or something. Some of them look pretty similar to some costumes used in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette.

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Do you have any 18th century music tips?

I usually love 18th century music whenever I hear it in movies and at events, but I know very little about it and never really get around to finding any since I don’t know where to start.

What’s your favourite 18th century music? Do you favour any specific recordings of 18th century operas and classical music? Any tips and any types of music are welcome!

Gunnebo och andra sommarnöjen från 1700-talet kring Göteborg by Lars Sjöberg and Staffan Johansson is a book mostly about Gunnebo, a late 18th century summer house near Göteborg. The book has plenty of information about the history of the building and the architecture and interior, accompanied by many photos and pictures of the original plans. At the back of the book there are a few shorter chapters about other 18th century summer houses in the Göteborg area.

I love this book and recommend it. The photos are gorgeous and there are many of them, and the text is interesting and fun to read. As far as I know this book is only available in Swedish.

(By the way, I just added a “buildings and interiors” category to the right.)

There will be 18th century weeks at Skansen again this July, with concerts and 18th century costumes. Check out the program here (they’re using my photo again!). The information is only in Swedish though.

Rockin’ the Rococo is the blog of a girl who’s doing a big project on 18th century clothing. She has reproduced the wardrobe of an 18th century middle class Englishwoman using only period accurate materials and techniques, even doing the sewing while dressed in 18th century clothes and only by daylight or candlelight. Be sure to check out the exhibition page to see the presentation of the finished project. The process of each garment is covered in detail as well which is very helpful for other costumers!

Mrs. Alexander Hamilton by Ralph Earl, 1787.

Here’s a great blog I just came across, History of American Women – 18th Century. Lots of portraits of and information about women in 18th century America.

Via Costumes, Cats and the 18th Century, a great online shoe museum called Shoe Icons. Go directly to the 18th century section here.

I was just contacted by this new site, Creative Spaces, which is like a museum community, and it looks like it could be really fun. You can search the collections of nine British museums and add things to your favourites, start groups and so on. I have started exploring it but haven’t tried all the features yet. The site isn’t completely finished yet and it doesn’t work perfectly, but I think it’s very promising!

You can see my profile here, and of course I started an 18th century fashion group.

Madame Pauli is a new Swedish blog with long and informative entries about different aspects of 18th century fashion.