Title: WALES. / FANCY BALL COMPANION No. 23 / C.H. MARTIN DEL. T.C.WILSON LITH / Published by T. Pewtrej’s, 67, Newington Causeway / Printed by F. Alvey, 5 Borough Road, Southwark.
Description: Young woman walking on path with lake and mountains behind. She is wearing a tall hat with a buckle on the crown, cap with ?lace lappets with ringlets showing, a kerchief tucked into a low-cut, short-sleeved tailed gown of striped fabric with bands on the sleeves; long mittens, apron, skirt, stockings and shoes with buckles.
Note: This representation of a very small-waisted young woman in fashionable, rather than practical clothes is one of at least three (the others being ‘Wales’ (NLW PA5673) and ‘Wales’ (NLW PA9087). It is almost certainly from a book of fashion plates of costumes for fancy dress balls which were very popular at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. The hat is not a Welsh hat, but the gown is very similar to one illustrated in Cambrian Costumes nos. 11 and 13 (1834), of which over 80 examples are known to have survived.
Medium: lithograph
Size: paper: 27.7 x 21.3 cms
Artist: C. H. Martin
Engraver: T. C. Wilson
Printer: F. Alvey, (Southwark)
Publisher: T. Pewtress (67 Newington Causeway)
Date: 1850-1870