Nadar
http://ibiblio.org/wm/paint/realism
Photo by Nadar
«Smell» (1839) |
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«Four Corsets» (1840) |
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«Ladies of the Demi-Monde» (1855) |
«It was […] in 1853 that the crinoline began to be accepted, and it became more or less obligatory: the simplest taffeta dress needed no fewer than seventeen yards of material. […] A woman could hardly get into her carriage […] and her husband had to sit on the box outside.» Joanna Richardson. La Vie Parisienne 1852-1870. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1971, p. 236-237.
THE CRINOLINE
Simon, Marie. Fashion in Art. The Second Empire and Impressionism. London: Zwemmer, 1995.
The word crinoline originates from a sixteenth-century fabric made of horsehair mixed with cotton or linen. It was used for petticoats after 1840. The uncomfortable material was quickly abandoned, but bequeathed its name to the ringed skirts of 1850, then to the “hooped cage” of 1856. Monsieur Tavernier, the inventor of the “cage”, that curious metal skirt, is said to have been inspired by the iron and glass structure of the Crystal Palace, erected in London by Joseph Paxton for the Great Exhibition of 1851. Whether or not that was so, Tavernier was considered a man of progress, since apart from considerably lightening the skirt by eliminating the numerous petticoats, his frame could be expanded almost without limit. Its maximum circumference was reached in 1858. (46, 51)
It became impossible at that time for a man to give his arm to a woman. There was talk of widening doorways, and caricaturists, the most famous among them being Daumier, delighted in showing travellers suffocated by skirts in railway compartments, capsizings caused by a fatal gust of wind or the selective malice of turnstiles. Moralists were shocked by the amount of cloth these skirts required: tens of metres, further augmented by the flounces which were much in vogue up to 1860. (51)
Paralleling this expansion, sleeves widened in pagoda fashion from shoulder to elbow, to the point of bursting. Bodices ended in a point below the waist and were often embellished with little basques. The shawl and mantelet were indispensable adjuncts to this silhouette, as was a bonnet with front brim, a bavolet and wide knotted strings. (51)
A turning point was reached in 1865: the volume of the skirt began to shrink. The cumbersome crinoline, sweeping the ground, had conclusively demonstrated its impracticality. (55)
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| «My dear Sir, it is impossible for me to plead your case. The most important pieces are missing: money.» (1840) | 
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«Third-Class Carriage» (1865) Metropolitan Museum, New York |
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«Don Quixote and the Dead Mule» (1867) Musée d’Orsay |
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Daumier: A trip to China: choose “Caricature”
