Ackermann's Regency Fashion Plates, Scans from original Plates

Evening Gown

Morning Dress

Walking Dress       .....       Dinner Dress

Left: Opera Dress

Right: Court Dress

Feathers always

required at Court

Presentations

Half-Dresses

  Promenade Dresses

Some more Barbier drawings from The Romance of Perfume

My Favorite of the Perfume Drawings

Drawings are old and yellowed, so its difficult to know how much to "whiten" them.

Another Favorite: the purple-grey was Silver in the originals, I think real silver.

Ackermann's Repository prints

Here are some prints from Ackermann's Repository of Fashion, from 1800-1820.

Eifel Tower

france 2010 - a set on Flickr

My friend Claire visited France in June, and posted some really cool photos, which reminded me of a couple of really cool pics I got when visiting Paris 3 or 4 years ago with my sister.

Ghost Pigeon

A pigeon slammed into my Living Room

window, leaving a ghostly impression.

You might be surprised to know this fellow

or gal flew away afterward.  Must have had a Hell of a headache!

Venice Photo and Photoshop changes

Christmas Cards

I belong to a Georgette Heyer 'List', where we chat about her books. Each year we have a Card exchange, and I like to make cards using fashion plates from the era (Regency). There were three or four magazines for ladies at the time, the best being Ackermann's Repository. The French Costume Parisien also has splendid plates, although their ladies look to be about 8-foot tall.

Here is this year's card.

Reluctant Widow

I love book covers, though they never seem to live up to my imagination. The latest crop of Heyer covers, using portraits & paintings of the 19th century, should have been wonderful: so many splendid works of art to choose from. Instead, they were mostly awful, and often bizarre. One wonders if the person composing the covers had any idea of what the books were about. Edwardian paintings to show Regency era men and woman. People lolling about on the lawn when the book was a swashbuckler. Bleah.

Anyhow: I have this fashion portrait in my largish collection. I scanned it and added other details, which, I think & hope, give a potential reader an inkling as to what is inside the covers! The Reluctant Widow is a Napoleonic era (Regency) romance/mystery/gothic, all done in a tongue-in-cheek humor. One of my favorite Georgette Heyers'.

Quail in Snow

This photo was all grey monotones, except for the red leaves on the bush (which I did not tamper with), so I had to do a lot of Photoshopping with contrast. The quail on the right side are in shadow. I created a new layer and used the 'Edges" tool, which , when placed over the original pic, gave it a sort-of Japanese painting look. Sort -of!

Below: Original picture, only changes were contrast and some color correction. I may play with this some more, the quail are actually brown & black, not green & black.

Poppea's Villa near Pompeii

This was a recently (and still being excavated) villa, which may have belonged to the Roman Empress Poppea. I took some nice photos of wall murals.