I’m incredibly talented at getting distracted…like seriously. I’m currently in the process of doing a bit of research into mouches (or beauty patches) and was looking at 18th century caricatures. Of course rather than finding a selection of wonderful caricatures on mouches I instead found a veritable selection on the ludicrous hairstyles of the 18th century…. And rather than waste my procrastination skills I thought I should share them with everyone here!
The majority of these quite frankly hilarious images date to the 1770s.
Caricature of a Dressed Woman’s Back with Elaborate Hairdo, late 18th century
La Françoise à Londres. The French Lady in London,
or the Head Dress for the Year 1771
“The Vis a Vis Bisected or the Ladies Coop”,1776 M.Darly
Or as I like to call it “My hair is so tall I have to sit on the bottom of my carriage”
18th century caricature of the mode for perruques fregate
“Mlle Des Victoire coiffure à la Grenade”1779 French
“The Fatal Effects of Coquetterie”,1774 French
I Don’t have the detail for this one I’m afraid…
Hand-coloured etched engraving published by M Darly in 1777.
Mlle des Faveurs a la Promenade a Londres
And as this image proves…no these elaborate hairstyles were not simply reserved for women!
The Macaroni. A Real Character at the Late Masquerade
Mezzotint by Philip Dawe; printed for John Bowles in 1773
Quite a few of the caricatures seen here came from two amazing posts:
Tehee these hairdos are amazing! Just need to ask my hairdresser if we can recreate the coiffure a la Grenade…
Thoes engravings are fantastic!, if you like those kind of pictures, you might also like some of the strange woman pictures of Grandville.Good blog.Marina & Noe
Hello, and thank you for your lovely comment on my blog! 🙂 As for being distracted by other things than those you're actually looking for is something I recognize too well…I mean, how can you not?! 😉 Caricatures from the 18th century are always quite entertaining, and I love these hair pictures! Ok, they might exaggerated things a bit, but the hairstyles of that century were a bit…ehm…"artistic" during a few years… 😉 Imagine the time it would have taken building one of those "things", and then having to sit straight up and sleep so it wouldn't get ruined… 🙂 xox