Ball and dinner dresses, January 1841

1 portrait matching these criteria:

- subject matching 'Fashion Plates: Hair - Bandeaux crêpes'

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Ball and dinner dresses, January 1841

published by Dobbs & Co, published in The Court Magazine and Monthly Critic and Lady's Magazine and Museum, first published in Le Follet, Courrier des Salons, Journal des Modes
hand-coloured etching, line and stipple engraving, published January 1841
8 1/8 in. x 5 3/4 in. (205 mm x 147 mm) paper size
Acquired, 1930
Reference Collection
NPG D47871

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The plate was first published in Paris in 'Le Follet' on 26 December 1840. Described in the Court Magazine:
1st Figure - Dress of organdi à double jupe, over white satin: the inner skirt of the dress it will be perceived is considerably longer than the outer one; both skirts are finished by a broad hem, the one is looped up on the left side, with a full blown rose, the other on the right with a similar flower: the corsage of this very pretty dress is made quite tight, with a very slight point, and full draperies on the bosom. The sleeves are exceedingly short and full, looped up in front of the arm with full blown roses, a rose is likewise placed in centre of the draperies in front. White kid gloves, barely covering the wrists, the tips trimmed with swansdown. Coiffure à la Louis XIV: the hair drawn back from the face over the brow, with the exception of a range of tiny curls formed at the very roots; at the sides it is in thick clusters of long ringlets in the Montpensier style, wholly concealing the ears: a full blown rose is placed at the left temple, and a demi guirlande, or half wreath of full blown roses, goes from the rose entirely round the back of the head and terminates over the right ear. Necklace of large pearls, white satin shoes.
2nd Figure - Dress of pink satin. The corsage of this dress it will be perceived is wholly of a new cut, and very much in the style of a corset. It fits the shape as tightly as it is possible, has a long point, and three seams in front, the corsage is à coeur, sloping downwards from the shoulder both at back and front, the sleeves are tight and plain and very short, and present a new feature, that of being without shoulder straps; they are trimmed with two quillings of satin ribbon, and a small bouquet of three feathers each in front of the arm. The skirt of the dress is ornamented with two rows of these same bouquets of feathers placed alternately, and a similar branch is to be seen in front of the corsage. The hair is in bandeaux crèpes, bandeaux a little frizzed inside and the back coiled up in thick rouleaux like cables (see plate) two branches of the pink accacia droop at each side of the face. White kid gloves, the tips trimmed with a puffing of ribbons the long ends floating. White shoes: fan.

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Events of 1841back to top

Current affairs

Sir Robert Peel's second term as Prime Minister. Peel replaces the Whig Prime Minister Lord Melbourne after a Conservative general election victory. The English comic periodical Punch is first published, under the auspices of engraver Ebenezer Landells and writer Henry Mayhew, and quickly establishes itself as a radical commentary on the arts, politics and current affairs, notable for its heavily satirised cartoons.

Art and science

Thomas Carlyle publishes his set of lectures On Heroes and Hero Worship, in which he attempts to connect past heroic figures to significant figures form the present.
William Henry Fox Talbot invents the calotype process, in which photographs were developed from negatives. This allowed for multiple copies of images to be made, and was the basis of modern, pre-digital, photographic processing.

International

Signing of the Straits Convention, an international agreement between Britain, France, Prussia, Austria, Russia and Turkey, denying access to non-Ottoman warships through the seas connecting the Mediterranean and the Black Seas, a major concession by Russia. Whilst signalling a spirit of co-operation, the convention emphasises the decline of the Ottoman Empire.

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