Art before commerce - watercolors by Jules David, 1849-1886

1875.

Beginning at the end of the eighteenth century, engravings of the latest French fashions began to be produced and could soon be found in places far from Paris. At the time, ladies' clothes were made at home or, rarely, by a local dressmaker. But Paris had already long been considered the arbiter of fashion so, all over the world, any woman with pretensions of modishness longed to know what was being worn in the French capital. And by the mid-nineteenth century, Parisian fashion plates - lithographs, often hand-colored - were quite common and could be found in nearly every corner of the globe. What makes the images here a bit more interesting is that they came before the engravings. These are the original watercolors that the lithographs were based on. The hand-coloring applied to the resulting engravings usually had no relation at all to that of the original garment - and is often quite jarring and crude - so the generally harmonious color combinations shown here are much more likely to reflect the true coloration of each toilette.

1849.

1852.

1859.

1861.

1862.

1865.

1866.

1868.

1868.

1869.

1869.

1869.

1872.

1874.

1875.

1876.

1878.

1878.

1880.

1881.

1885.

1885.

1886.

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Jules David (né Jean-Baptiste David; 29 March 1808, Paris – 29 October 1892, Paris), French painter and lithographer. His work appeared in many books and magazines, and he was particularly known for his illustrations of contemporary Parisian fashions.