Caption:
Neo-classical ball gowns, Consulate era, An X (Year 10) 1801. Handcoloured steel engraving by Hippolyte Pauquet after fashion magazines of the time from the Pauquet Brothers' "Modes et Costumes Historiques" (Historical Fashions and Costumes), Paris, 1865. Hippolyte (b. 1797) and Polydor Pauquet (b. 1799) ran a successful publishing house in Paris in the 19th century, specializing in illustrated books on costume, birds, butterflies, anatomy and natural history.