18th century blog

Click to enlarge.

Self portrait.

Pehr Hilleström was a Swedish 18th century painter who often painted everyday scenes with great attention to detail.

Pehr Hilleström on Historiesajten. In Swedish.

Pehr Hilleström at Konstnärslexikonet Amanda. Also in Swedish.

Some Hilleström paintings after the cut.

Edit: Updated this post with two more paintings.

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Divided Affections, The Extraordinary Life of Maria Cosway by Carol Burnell
I was very kindly given this book months ago to review, but university plus myself being a slow reader resulted in me not finishing it until yesterday.

I had been wanting to learn more about Maria Cosway so I was very happy to receive the book. I was happily surprised to find that it was such a beautiful book, with many pictures and a beautiful layout. Pictures are a huge plus for me so I liked this book right away.

It’s a biography about Maria Cosway, with some parts written in a dramatized dialogue. The parts that are “made up” are in italics so you can clearly tell them from the rest which I think was a nice touch. Maria Cosway had a very interesting life and the book is very entertainingly written, not boring at all. It really made you feel like you were there, and I just really liked it. I have yet to read all the notes at the back of the book but there are lots of them and they look very interesting.

A great book and highly recommended to anyone interested in Maria Cosway or fashionable 18th century ladies in general.

(As a lover of 18th century fashion I have to point out a tiny fashion-related error. At one place in the book a dress is described which is clearly a so called chemise dress, also known as a gaulle or chemise à la Reine, but in the book it’s called a robe à l’ Anglaise.)

Sofia Vladimirovna Panina, 1791.

I don’t know anything about Jean-Louis Voille except that he appears to be French and seems to have painted mainly Russians. His paintings are lovely though, and you can see more after the cut.

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Here’s another great database to check out. Joconde is a catalogue of French museum collections. Go to the advanced search and write 18e siècle in the “Période/Datation” box and you’ll get all the 18th century stuff. I found lots of great paintings, objects and clothes.

Une Collection Francaise is a blog containing “a collection of French miniature portraits owned by a French collector who wishes to share them with art lovers”, and most of them are 18th century. Click the picture of Lamballe to go there.

I posted earlier about the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 18th century European dress page, but you should check out their costume database as well.

Click the picture above to watch a podcast about this dress, created by Rose Bertin and probably worn by Marie Antoinette. The dress belongs to the Royal Ontario Museum but will apparently be exhibited at Versailles next year March 16 to June 14, as part of an exhibition about 17th and 18th century court dress. I’ll hopefully visit!

John Wilkes and his daughter, 1779.

German painter Johann Zoffany on Wikipedia.

More paintings after the cut.

Edit: Updated this post with one more painting.

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The website of the upcoming movie The Duchess is up with lots of photos and information. My favourite thing about it is that many of the costumes are presented with detailed photos and information, I also liked the “discover” section. I have mixed feelings about this movie but mostly I can’t wait to see it! Click the picture to go to the website.

Some photos of an outfit I wore one day for the 18th century weeks at Skansen.

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Slott och salar i Sverige by Massimo Listri and Daniel Rey
This is a book about Swedish castles and mansions and mentions several from the 18th century. The photos in the book are really beautiful, but other than that I was pretty disappointed with this book. Every castle or mansion gets a chapter, but there is very little real information. There are mostly anecdotes and speculations and pretty much nothing about historical architecture or interior decorating. Another big problem with the book is that there are no captions, nothing is told about the beautiful rooms and buildings in the pictures. I’m glad I have the book because of the photos, but I would not recommend it if you actually want to learn something.

The book is published in both Swedish, English and Italian. In English as Great Houses in Sweden and in italian as Interni di Svezia.

Sofia Magdalenas brudklänning i tidens smak by AnneMarie Dahlberg
This is a tiny little book sold at the Swedish museum Livrustkammaren. It’s about the wedding dress of Sofia Magdalena who later became queen of Sweden. It tells of the wedding and of the construction of the dress, and contains x-rays of the dress bodice. A few other dresses and objects are also shown. There are no actual descriptions on how to go about making the dress, but it’s still useful if you’re interested in making 18th century clothes. It’s an interesting little book with many pictures, and it’s very cheap. if you’re ever at Livrustkammaren I recommend picking it up.

Another Livrustkammaren tip is the pattern of Gustav III:s wedding suit also sold in the museum shop.

I just found these two “sister blogs”, Georgiana’s gossip guide to the 18th century, and Marie Antoinette’s gossip guide to the 18th century. Both very entertaining blogs with bits of 18th century information and lots of pictures, even some I hadn’t seen before. Check them out!