Theatrum Mulierum and Aula Veneris. Civis Londinensis Uxor (A London citizen's wife)

Wenceslaus (or Wenzel) Hollar (1607-77) was an Anglo-Czech artist, and one of the greatest and most prolific printmakers of the 17th century. His art  reveals his immensely wide subject range, and reflects the priorities of his time: religious prints, mythology, satire, landscapes, geography and maps, portraits, women, costumes, sports, natural history (including caterpillars, moths and snails), architecture, heraldry, numismatics, ornaments, title-pages and initials. 

This etching comes from the series of costume prints 'Theatrum Mulierum' (Theatre of Women) which consisted of forty plates of European women in fashionable costumes, and a title-page, and was related to the series 'Aula Veneris' of the same subject. It depicts a married woman of London standing whole length facing right, with her back turned towards the viewer. She is wearing a dark hat, the collar with a scalloped lace edge, the gown fastened in the back over the skirt and underskirt, and a shoe with a pompom.

See:

tp://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/tag/wenceslaus-hollar/

Richard Pennington, <em>A Descriptive Catalogue of the Etched Work of Wenceslaus Hollar 1607-1677</em> (Cambridge, 1982),  p. 306 (no. 1894).

Dr Mark Stocker          Curator, Historical International Art           June 2017