Fun and Furbelows

If there was ever a man who knew his frills and furbelows, it was the French painter James Tissot (1836-1902).  So lush and detailed were his pictures, they're frequently used nowadays to recreate historical fashions (I had this one on my wall at college), and all this for paintings that were often derided at the time for being, well, a bit tacky....frocks were for fashion plates you see (I know!  Way to sideline the lovely things!), and no matter how fine your depiction of ruffles and bows (this being the very reason you chose to paint them in the first place, ahem...), no matter how marvellous your flame-haired mistress looked in your studio's wardrobe of contemporary frocks, or how often you painted the same dress twice (or three times) from different angles in your pictures, just like, in fact, an actual fashion plate, you were going to have a hard time wooing society on both sides of the channel...which is probably why Tissot turned out some cracking religious themed pictures in his later years, although he never did kick that costume bug, as this yummy painting shows...

You can find all sorts more about Tissot here, for your absolute ruffle fix, I recommend Too Early, 1873 (never arrive too early for a ball, no matter how fulsome your frills), Lilacs, 1875 (see how the flowers weep in sorrow as they fail to compete with her splendid skirt!) and July: Specimen of a Portrait: 1878 (white ruffles yellow bows, slightly bored expression), plus of course the wonder above which is L'Ambitieuse from 1883 (though I'm rather worried there's about to be an unfortunate furniture-dragging incident any moment with that train...)

Of course, we can't all attend balls, sweep onto boats or lounge about under shadow-dappling trees, but we can all wear ruffles, phew....

Women fond of dress are hardly ever entirely satisfied not to be seen, except amont the insane; usually they want witnesses.

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)