~Please CLICK on this image to see the beautiful details~
The reason this gal is sitting down and her fella is standing, is because his clothes are a LOT more comfortable than hers. Breathing must have been really fun in that corset. Not to mention the probable height of her heels. They likely didn't make walking all that easy. Those corsets were so great for women's health :-) My Euro ancestress'ess likely didn't have to worry about that, because they were probably hanging out in the scullery or doing the laundry.
It looks like the well-dressed swell is playing a lute. The piece of music I included in this piece was written for Mozart for a keyboard, I'm sure this musical couple were influenced by it, though. His lady friend is apparently doing the singing, she has a little book on her lap.
I found this old pin at an antique shop yard sale. It's marked "Limoges" on the back, so I guess it is, though the original design is quite naive, not at all like the elegant china that is associated with Limoges. The little picture had a fair amount of missing bits and places where somebody tried to paint over some of the big scratches. When you play around with a piece this much, it takes you back to the first person that owned it. Wouldn't it be dandy to imagine that Rosine gave it to her sister Martha for her birthday? (For more about Martha and Rosine, see my blog entries for May 26 and May 27 ).
It looks like this little token of sisterly affection has been well loved over the years. The catch wasn't working any more. Clearly Martha wore it a lot. Maybe she was an amateur musician, like me and that's why her sister picked out the musical setting. Did she and Rosine play simple, parlor music like I do? Did they laugh at the artfully posed couple's outfits and compare the damsels torturous undergarments to their own modern and up to date health corsets?
