Welsh Costume: Cambrian Costumes, prints
A set of 13 prints ascribed to Lady Llanover (1802-1896) dedicated in both Welsh and English to the Nobility and Gentry of Wales. These are now well known because several editions of a set of 12 of them were published as postcards by the National Library in about 1947 and the early 1970s and were for sale in the Library until about 2015. The prints were based on a set of watercolours in an album which was donated to the Library in 1942 (NLW DV299) by the family who lived at Llanover.
THE ARTIST
Four of the watercolours are signed A Cadwallader / Cadwalader; the others are unsigned. None of them are like a few portraits of women in Welsh costume signed Aug: Hall (Augusta, Lady Llanover),
For more discussion on Lady Llanover and the prints see the article by Michael Freeman listed below and to the page linked to this collection on ‘Cambrian Costumes all images’.
THE PRINTS
Thirteen of the watercolours were produced as hand-coloured soft ground etchings. They are on paper of various quality 20-34 cms. long x 13-25 cms wide. None have the name of the artist or publisher’s details but three have the initials HCS near the feet of the subject which might be those of the engraver.
DATE
It is likely that the prints were produced in or after 1835. Ten of the surviving 210 prints are on good paper watermarked 1834 and 1835 but eight copies of no. 10 are on paper watermarked 1900 and they are accompanied by a note ‘To paintings [?]by cupboard. Welsh Costumes by Lady Ll. No. 10 reproduced for me as they were wanting’. Nothing is known of any attempts to reprint some of the images in 1900 and the location of the original plates is unknown.
Michael Freeman, ‘Lady Llanover and the Welsh Costume Prints’, “The National Library of Wales Journal”, vol. 34, no. 2 (2007), pp. 235-251 (available on line).
