tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261676034084131707.post3249828535261099945..comments2022-03-27T04:11:20.650-04:00Comments on Thread-Headed Snippet: John Wollaston and The Case of the Strangely Front-Closing GownsThread-Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15993301657471657837noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261676034084131707.post-51560737478531225002013-01-10T01:21:57.910-05:002013-01-10T01:21:57.910-05:00Sorry I've taken so long to reply to your post...Sorry I've taken so long to reply to your post. It came during exams this past semester. You've shed new light on these paintings for me! Thank you. I've heard of the "itinerant painter with a box full o'bodies" trick while on historic home tours in the past. I had no idea Wollaston was one of them. It certainly does bear out that he artificially introduced this bodice-style in a geographic region where it was otherwise little-known. <br /><br />I can't imagine it would have been hard to convince his sitters that they were going to be portrayed at the very height of fashion. He didn't really work in the "backwoods," but the colonies were definitely a far cry from London.<br /><br />Thank you so much for your comment!Thread-Headhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15993301657471657837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261676034084131707.post-31202272633893867892012-12-31T01:18:01.681-05:002012-12-31T01:18:01.681-05:00I'm so happy to have found this post! This mys...I'm so happy to have found this post! This mystery has plagued me for quite a long time. I work in a museum that displays eight Wollaston portraits from 1760 to about 1772, and five of those are women with front-closures on their dresses. Visitors on my tours ask constantly if it was typical for the ladies of the time period to bare so much skin and wear these low-cut styles. What they seem to overlook, however, is that every single one of those five women is wearing THE EXACT SAME DRESS in different colors! <br /><br />The historians for the site found an interesting tidbit about Wollaston and his business habits. Apparently he was fond of painting the bodies in the portraits ahead of time (sometimes more than a hundred of them) using whatever clothing was fashionable. When you commissioned him, he would roll up a dozen or so of these pre-painted canvasses, bring them to your estate, and then let you select the body you liked best. He was quite popular with the Virginia gentry because he was able to reduce the time spent sitting for portraits to only a day or two using this technique. <br /><br />I have to wonder if some of these "out of era" fashions were canvasses that had been in his trunks since his time in England...Beth Brownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01198193773873190444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261676034084131707.post-52195635048176208282012-06-15T13:21:20.686-04:002012-06-15T13:21:20.686-04:00Oh boy. I know this is very un-PC of me, but the e...Oh boy. I know this is very un-PC of me, but the eyes on the last two look positively Down Syndrome. And WHAT is going ON with Susannah's pearl scarf-catcher in front? It's like the necklace fell off her and Wollaston just decided "oh I won't tell her, I'll just keep painting."<br /><br />The front-closing is interesting, as is the fact that neither of the two full-length gown paintings are open-front but full round-gowns. It kind of makes me feel like he may have thought to himself "oh f--- it, I am NOT painting all those frills and fripperies in different colors. Round gown it is!"Annahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03095426164654110973noreply@blogger.com