Dimensions: height 283 mm, width 190 mm
Copyright: Rijks Museum: Open Domain
This fashion plate, made around 1800, presents a young man adjusting his jabot, a lace frill. This seemingly simple gesture speaks volumes about the codes of elegance during the French Directory period. The jabot, a symbol of aristocratic refinement inherited from previous centuries, is now being playfully adjusted, signaling a move towards a more relaxed, yet studied, nonchalance. Think of similar gestures across history, like the rakish tilt of a hat in a Renaissance portrait, each a nuanced expression of self-presentation. This act of adjusting the jabot finds echoes in later expressions of dandyism. Consider how this image engages our subconscious. This seemingly small adjustment becomes a microcosm of evolving social attitudes, a continual dance between inherited traditions and emergent individual expressions.
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