The Lady’s Monthly Museum, August 1799.
“Full Dresses for August 1799.”
The gold bits on the left figure (bandeau, buttons, and belt) are painted in bright gold metallic paint. The silver bits on the right figure (bandeau, sleeve tassels, and belt) are painted in silver metallic paint, but much more clumsily and thick, as though a different colorist worked on that figure. Bright metallic accents were used very successfully and delicately in the more upscale Gallery of Fashion. But this was a smaller, inexpensive magazine that catered to a less affluent audience. So, even though they may have tried to emulate the more expensive magazines by adding metallic accents, the fashion prints in The Lady’s Monthly Museum never matched the quality of the higher-end publications.
The lady in green seems to be looking at a portrait miniature. Her dress buttons all the way down from bodice to hem, which is somewhat unusual. I do like that she is wearing blue gloves and shoes with her green dress.
The print is described in the magazine as follows:
“First Figure. Front hair in short curls, and turned up close behind; the hair on the top of the head in bands, intermixed with a bandeau of coloured silk and gold beads; one ostrich feather; gold necklace; fine white muslin robe trimmed with lace, and round the neck in Vandyke scollops, ornamented with small gold buttons, and gold girdle round the waist; pale yellow gloves, and pale blue or yellow shoes.
“Second Figure. Hair in short curls, with bandeau of silver, and three ostrich feathers; pearl necklace; pale green muslin robe, with white satin cuffs, and trimmed round the bosom with white lace; full sleeves, drawn up with silver tassels; silver girdle round the waist; buttoned down the front.”
