Patricia Dunham wrote:
Ha on me! Just showed this to my husband. His immediate reaction? Of course it's Victorian, that's a metal engraving. (Not before 18thC, used extensively in Victorian period.)
Your monitor resolution is better than mine! That was my first thought, but I couldn't make out the usual engraving lines so I didn't want to make a flat declaration. It does have the right look, though.
He also opined that there probably is a real painting something like this, and that most of the odd bits could eventually be identified as things that the Victorian copyist didn't really understand when s/he looked at the original.
It would be interesting to know whether it's a stand-alone art print or an illustration from a book, and whether the artist was copying from the original artwork or from an earlier print (or even an earlier drawn or painted copy). I've seen some images, particularly in costume books, that were several generations removed from the original works, gaining small changes with each layer of removal.
If this is a stand-alone print, most of us would have been less likely to have run across it. For that matter, even if the engraving is from a book, it might as easily be from a history book as from a costume book.
--Robin _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
