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Pearly Queens: Eleonora di Toledo vs. Elizabeth I
By Ellie Doran (@Elena_Doran) Figure 1 (left): Agnolo Bronzino, Ritratto di Eleonora di Toledo con il figlio Giovanni, (c.1544-45), oil on panel, 115 x 96cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, 1890 n.748. Available here: https://www.uffizi.it/opere/%2Feleonora-di-toledo Figure 2 (right): Unknown English artist, The Armada Portrait, (c. 1588), oil on panel, 97.8 x 72.4 cm, National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG 541. Available here: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw02077/Queen-Elizabeth-I Elizabeth I,…
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Florals for spring? Why artificial flowers can be ground-breaking
By Zara Kesterton (@ZaraKesterton) If you followed the Met Gala this year, you will have noticed a blossoming of flowers on the red carpet. These were not your typical chintzy floral-print dresses, though: the flowers were big, bold, and often avant-garde. Whatever your position on the Met Costume Institute’s celebration of controversial designer Karl Lagerfeld,…
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‘Turning Botches into Beauty’: The Early Modern Origins of the Pimple Patch
by Marlo Avidon (@MarloAvidon) Today, it’s not uncommon to see someone walking down the street with a hydrocolloid patch stuck to their cheek, chin, or forehead to cover and treat a pimple. While many of these acne patches are designed to remain unseen, a scroll through the websites of popular beauty suppliers reveal a diverse…
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22. A Hand-Coloured Fashion Print
By Marlo Avidon (@MarloAvidon) In the nearly two centuries between the decline of the sixteenth-century costume book and the rise of the late eighteenth and nineteenth-century fashion plate, the late seventeenth century experienced a brief resurgence in printing images of contemporary dress. Created almost exclusively in France and either depicting ambiguous, unnamed mannequins known only…
doinghistoryinpublic.org 