Ingres in Fashion: Representations of Dress and Appearance in Ingres's Images of Women Book

It can be argued that haute-couture began in the first half of the 19th century; certainly its vagaries were recorded for posterity by French portraitist Jean-Auguste- Dominique Ingres in a wealth of richly detailed studies. For the fashion historian, Ingres' works offer a visual insight into the burgeoning consumerism of the time, and portray the men and women--particularly women--of society resplendent in their luxurious fabrics, intricate jewellery and lavish accessories. Aileen Ribeiro, Head of Dress at London's Courtauld Institute of Art, has authored the exemplary Ingres in Fashion, in which she painstakingly describes Ingres' depiction of fashion to reflect identity and status in mid 19th-century France--a technique also employed by novelists of the day such as Flaubert and Balzac. Ingres' dual obsessions--the precise and sumptuous reproductions of modish figures like his 1853 portrait Josephine-Eleonore- Marie-Pauline de Galard de Brassac de Bearn, Princesse de Broglie (the name as voluminous as the costume she wears), and the sensual, almost fantasy- like odalisques of Le Bain Turc (The Turkish Bath, 1862) are amply represented and scrutinised here in more than 150 illustrations. A fascinating social, historical and fashion document. --Catherine TaylorRead More