All posts tagged: rococo

Rococo undergarments & Rococo art

My Dr Sketchy talk is themed around how artists were inspired by undergarments.  I’m starting with the 18th century and rococo undergarments. Of course, 18th century undergarments aren’t technically undergarments, since chemises, stays and petticoats could all be worn as outerwear! So the artworks that I am being inspired by to stage my tableaux for the talk includes both intimate boudoir scenes with real underwear and genre scenes with romanticised peasant women in stays and petticoats. First intimate boudoir scenes, as epitomised by Boucher’s La Toilette: Ooh!  Stockings!  And frilly petticoats!  And bed jackets, and maybe a hint of stays.  And sexy slippers! On a much naughtier note, we have Pater’s “Mme. de Bouvillon Tempts Fate by Asking Ragotin to Search for a Flea” (which has got to be the best name for a painting ever, and must be a reference to something) Mme. de Bouvillon appears to have opened her robe to reveal her jumps, which are barely containing her bounty.  Oh dear! The genre scenes are a little sweeter and less saucy: Boucher’s …

Rate the Dress: the Victorians do the 18th Century

Oh dear!  Poor Adrian!  Last week most of you did not like his striped peasant ensemble.  Only Lauren stood up for Adrian as a designer; the other comments were a chorus of “Ewwww”, “bleck” and “sickly sweet”.  The frock with the floppy pockets flopped at 4.4 out of 10 This week I’m tempting fate by sticking with sickly sweet.  Frederico Andreotti was an Italian painter noted for his romantic, nostalgic, and frankly sentimental paintings of a imaginary 18th century world. The frocks in Andreotti’s paintings are an intriguing mix of rococo and late Victorian styles.  Today we are looking at a lady in a flowered pink frock,  caught up over a striped white and yellow underskirt, with a white stomacher, blue bows in hair, ruffles and frills galore and a decidedly coquettish expression. Her hair may be powdered, but the outfit is as much late 1880s in its aesthetic as it is 18th century.  What do you think?  Would you prefer a purer form or Victorian or Rococo fashion?  Does Victorian does Rococo work, but …