I don't know much about Union Magazine specifically. There were many flash in the pan publications around this era when publishers realized that ~ wow ~ based on the success of Godey's, it was apparent that women liked to read! And so the market was full of magazines to appeal to women mostly of a privileged class, though cheaper books were likewise produced in an attempt to appeal to women of lower means as well. The glut would eventually lead to a magazine Darwinism, with the strong rising to the top and the weaker falling away. Godey's would likewise continue to dominate despite competition from Demorest's magazine, and would only eventually succomb to the popular format of Harper's Bazaar.
Today I am sharing a beautiful fashion plate from Union Magazine, April 1849. The inclusion of the man in this image is lovely since around about the 1860s men sort of drop out of the fashion plate world in women's magazines. Later they emerge again in their own books, but the ladies magazines will be inclined to focus on women and sometimes children more exclusively.
I don't know much about Union Magazine specifically. There were many flash in the pan publications around this era when publishers realized that ~ wow ~ based on the success of Godey's, it was apparent that women liked to read! And so the market was full of magazines to appeal to women mostly of a privileged class, though cheaper books were likewise produced in an attempt to appeal to women of lower means as well. The glut would eventually lead to a magazine Darwinism, with the strong rising to the top and the weaker falling away. Godey's would likewise continue to dominate despite competition from Demorest's magazine, and would only eventually succomb to the popular format of Harper's Bazaar. The painting is of Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts Angela was, in 1837, the wealthiest woman in England. You can read more about her at the above link, but you might like to know that in contrast to some heiresses today, she used her immense fortune toward charity, for the most part. She also, at an advanced age, "shocked polite society" by marrying her young secretary who was 40 years her junior. The painting, done in the 1840s, shows her as a young woman in a beautiful gown (click on the picture to see larger). She kinda looks like Dolly Madison on the doughnut and cookies boxes (for those of you who remember the old advertisements). ALSO: As promised, on Halloween (tomorrow) I am kicking off a new paper doll blog based on a couple of favorite comic book series of mine. The initial dolls are finished and posted already. You can set a new bookmark to: Comic Book Chronicles to join the fun! I uploaded the painted dolls to a photo album in the sidebar (at the right) under the heading "Paper Dolls" (obvious enough?). But I don't really like the way the album displays them: so tiny! And they are spaced apart so far as well. Weird. Anyway, since I have been fussing with doing that, I haven't accomplished much else in the limited time I allotted myself to work on these dolls this evening. The good news is: the dolls are there and you can download them and print them and they should be at a decent enough resolution to print well. Meanwhile, I am still painting their clothes (almost finished), and I will be posting those during the week (I'm a bit behind, alas ~ but what's new, right?). I also posted the dolls here, since I figure they deserved their own post for all the trouble they've caused me this evening. I will try to find a better way to put all the dolls in one place since I'm not satisfied with the album thingy. In the meantime, at least they are here. I think, now that I am almost done with one set of dolls, the dolls to come will be a lot easier (fingers crossed). Edited 10/12/2009: I re-uploaded the dolls to include the original commentary that went with them (just so that they would be complete. Also, because I included the commentary on their clothing and thought it would be strange that the dolls came without any. These dolls are printable and their clothes (which I will post tomorrow) will be scaled to fit them properly. If you had already downloaded the previous dolls, the scale should be the same. It's been a long journey, but I think we're finally off and running! Thank you for hanging in there with me! I can't believe I forgot to post the clothing for the dolls I created at the end of last month (has it been two weeks already???). It's amazing how the time flies when you are distracted and busy. I was just thinking last night that I have so much stuff I could be posting here and yet there are these long lags between posts! I am trying to improve, I promise. A lot has happened since I last posted. I received my copy of the OPDAG Paper Doll Studio yesterday and was very pleased to see my Henry Fleming doll in color! That's pretty fabulous and I am very excited that people are finding their way to my blog through that venue (all the more reason to keep this blog current!). The theme for the issue was literary characters, so there's more I'd like to share on the great art in the issue (post forthcoming!). Also, much as I had fun making these digital dolls (and much as I haven't abandoned the idea of making dolls alongside the story as previously mentioned ~ not by a long shot!), I think I do prefer more traditional media. If I haven't already shown that I am crazy when it comes to remaking things and changing horse midstream, let me assure you that I am. The good news for you, however, is that means I am committed to redoing these dolls this coming weekend. Let's see how I step up to the challenge! In the meantime, this will remain the template for the finished dolls. You'll just have to wait another week for the printable versions. Sorry! Once they are done, however, I promise they will be worth it! Lewis Fletcher & Katie Kirkwood As promised, I have been working on making some new paper dolls. And even though I sat at my painting desk and considered the dolls already in progress, I've decided to make dolls that will match the Reconstruction website. This gives me the dual advantage of actually making dolls alongside the story so that readers can see what the clothing looks like in color (the webcomic is mostly in sepia tones). Likewise, it's a great excuse to make dolls of supporting characters (like Katie Kirkwood here). As we progress through the story, I can supplement the dolls with new clothing, accessories, etc. I am also going to tag the dolls by name so that you can find all of their pieces easily using the links on the side. The image I am posting here isn't a high-resolution version (you can click to make it larger, but it's not very large). I will be posting a downloadable .pdf version that you can print and cut ~ just as soon as I get done with their clothes. Fortunately, digital painting is a lot quickly and less stress-inducing than "real" media, so I won't have any excuses for getting this done quickly. I'm working on the clothes a little bit today, but have other things I need to do, so I might not finish until next week. I was looking for a picture of a dress for a girl in the 1850s (and I will be drawing it, which I will share!), but I came across this wonderful ambrotype from that decade (1856 to be exact) with lovely tinting. The dress is perfect and the girl looks so sweet as well. The original source is this blog (currently defunct), which nevertheless features a lot of lovely period images. Old photographs as references are great for many things; you get to see particular patterns and trimmings and you know it was a garment actually worn by a person as opposed to something put together by a fancy designer and maybe worn once by some socialite. I think I have stated here somewhere that I'm much more interested in the day-to-day clothes rather than the fancy pieces, so here's a pretty good example of a nice dress that was probably worn often by this child. And even though she was likely a child of privilege, it's not a display piece like you would see represented in the ladies' magazines of the period. Click on the image to see the dress in more detail. It will be fun to reproduce the plaid trim (I've never done plaid before!). I'm not sure that i will make my own dress blue, however. I am thinking of changing it to lilac/purple or maybe even red. I did actually work on some original designs this weekend, but they are still in the pencil stage. I don't know why I get so perfectionist about this stuff. I am hoping, once I get back from San Diego (next Tuesday), I will find a way to streamline this process so that I will just move from design to drawing to painting without all of this fretting in between. I half-considered just rendering the clothes in sepia since I know it would be so much easier. It's the whole color thing that's holding me back. Color paralyzes me. I don't know why I don't just get rid of it and do monochromatic work instead. Then, if people want to color the clothes, they can do so themselves. I am trapped somewhere between going in this direction and fighting the good fight to not let the color thing beat me. While I duke it out psychologically, do enjoy this fashion plate from Le Follet (1849). Men's clothes were certainly more interesting in the first part of the Victorian Era (I love the long vests and the fabulous trims). They got a lot more maudlin as the century wore on: mostly black and neutral colors. styles in America prior to the Civil War generally seemed a lot dandier. We wouldn't see a lot of color back in men's clothes until the 20th century, alas. Likewise, enjoy this blog by Dorothy Jane Landgren Williams, which posts fashion-related items (including plates) from time to time. While the focus is mostly Regency-Era stuff, there's lots of other fun things to look at as well: Paraphernalia. I will return next week (and once again, hopefully more often). I've been gone a long time, busy with countless other projects and occasionally fretting about this seemingly abandoned blog. But I'm hoping to get back to making dolls very soon and finally have the time to do it. I don't really have any good excuses ~ my priorities have just been elsewhere. In the meantime, I offer some 1850s children's fashions I found while browsing this morning. Came across a site with a Regency & Victorian Paper Dolls CD for sale. It's a bit pricey, but an interesting collection of reproductions of early 19th century ephemera that you can print. Not much by way of samples shown, but it does provide a list of the contents, so I thought I would share the link at least. |
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