Hello,
In the last chapter, I left you with a painting that showed a mantua, worn by the seated lady from behind in blue and red. The other two ladies in pink and yellow have a ''robe volante'' :
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| Amour paisible Artist Antoine Watteau 1718-1719 Collection of Schloss Charlottenburg Source: Universalis.fr |
The 1710 decade was filled with upheavals in several spheres of society, including fashion. In New France, the greatest upheaval was the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, which ceded half of Acadia to the British. Also, on September 1, 1715, Louis XIV, the Sun King passed away, ceding his kingdom to the young 5-year-old Louis XV, his great-grandson. The regency is ensured by Philippe d´Orléans, nephew of Louis XIV. During the reign of the Sun King, the life of the king and his courtierswere in full display. The new regent, however, establishes a style of governance separating the political and public spheres from the private sphere.
As for the writings concerning this peculiar fashion in New France, I unfortunately did not find any source for this precise period.
It was during this period, from a fashion point of view, that the beginnings of the ''robe volante'' began around 1710. At the beginning, it was a mantua that was no longer fitted at the waist by the belt. To my knowledgeJean-Antoine Watteau was the most prolific artist of the 1710s, which is why his works will often be presented at the beginning of this chapter.
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| The rest Antoine Watteau around 1709 Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
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| The Fortune Teller Antoine Watteau 1710 Fine Arts Museums of San Fransisco Museum |
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| An elegant couple by a sculpted fountain Antoine Watteau No datation Private Collection Source: Mutual Art |
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| Woman walking outside town Plate 7 from''Figures de modes'' Jean-Antoine Watteau Around 1710 Art Museum of Philadelphia |
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| Woman standing, back view Jean-Antoine Watteau Around 1710 Art Museum of Philadelphia |
''Mme de Montespan invented the ''robes battantes'' to hide her pregnancies, because these kinds of gowns cover the waist, but when she was wearing them, it was like what she wanted to hide was written on her forehead ; everybody in the Court were saying: ''Mme de Montespan is wearing a ''robe ballante'', therefore she is pregnant.''
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| Extract of ''Correspondance complète de Madame la duchesse d'Orléans, née princesse Palatine'' Par M.G. Brunet 1863 Source: Google Books |
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| Femme de dos Sébastien Leclerc 1679 Source: Bibliothèque de Lyon |
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| Femme de qualitez indisposée qui va jouer aux cartes Artist anonymous Late 17th century Source: Gallica |
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| Femme de qualité en déshabillé se reposant sur un lit d'ange Artists: Nicolas Bazin and Jean-Dieu de St-Jean 1686 Source: Gallica |
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| Mademoiselle d'Armagnac en robe de chambre Artist Antoine Trouvain 1695 Source: Gallica |
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| Madame de Soisson en Robe de chambre Artist: Antoine Trouvain Late 17th century Source: Gallica |
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| Deux études d'une femme assise par terre tenant un éventail Artiste: Jean Antoine Watteau vers 1717 Collection Musée Condé, Chantilly |
Another name that I meet less often that sometimes refers to the ''robe volante'' and sometimes the ''robe à la française'' is an ''Andrienne''. This name is said to be derived from the play of the same name performed for the first time in front of a French audience in 1703. The actress playing "Glycérie relevant des couches", Marie Carton-Dancourt, appeared in the first performance of the play dressed in a long dress, wide, open and flowing and fashion would have seized this way of dressing thereafter. According to this version, Mme de Montespan had nothing to do with the appearance of this fashion. A collection on the theater of 1733 by Maupoint, notes that:
«une remarque à faire sur cette pièce est que la Demoiselle d'Ancourt la mère qui représentait l'Andrienne, imagina une sorte de Robe abattue qui convenait à ce rôle dont la mode s'établit & continue encore aujourd'hui, ces robes retiennent le nom d'Andriennes.»
"A remark to be made about this piece is that the Demoiselle d'Ancourt, the mother who represented the Andrienne, imagined a sort of non fitted dress which suited this role which fashion is established and continues to this day, the name of those gowns are Andriennes. "
If Madame la Duchesse d'Orléans is trying to disgrace the new fashion of the ''robe volante'' as much as Madame de Montespan by saying that the garment was invented to hide unexpected pregnancies, Maupoint tries to find the origin of the fashion which has still running. In my opinion, Maupoint has a much more neutral point of view than Madame la Duchesse d'Orléans. However, both write several years after the reported facts. An interesting exercise would be to scrutinize the writings of the period to find out which terms are used most often to describe the ''robe volante'', ''robe ballante'', ''robe battante'', ''Andrienne''. However, that will not be the subject of this article.
A new accessory will allow the flying dress to take off: the panniers.
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| Marché aux paniers et cerceaux rétably par arrestation devenue en faveur des Filles et des femmes à la mode rendu en 1719 Estampe extraite de la Collection de l'Histoire de France année 1719, vol 53 figurant dans Histoire des modes et du vêtement, du Moyen-Âge au XXIe siècle |
Made of reed, wood or whalebone, they solidify the shape of ladies' skirts. They are seen here in this satire, marché aux paniers et cerceaux en 1719. This is the earliest visual representation of baskets. What I notice above all in this illustration of a humorous nature is that the women illustrated are all wearing the mantua fashion while the latter is falling into disuse during the 1710s as illustrated in Watteau's paintings above. This idea of new fashion under the skirts but old fashion outside could also be part of the joke. It must be remembered, a satire is an exaggeration of reality, we must look at them as we look at caricatures today.
In the 1720s, the ''robe volante'' became distinct from the coat with its famous wide pleats at the back. Criticism at the time was that the ''robe volante'' was reminiscent of the dressing gown. For the older generation at the time, accustomed to the strict etiquette of Louis XIV's court, it was a bit like walking around the upscale restaurant in pajamas in 2021, inappropriate and slightly indecent.
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| Femme assise Artist Jean Antoine Watteau First quarter 18th century Musée du Louvres |
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| jeune femme assise à terre, tournée vers la gauche, la tête vue de trois-quarts vers la gauche Auteur Jean Antoine Watteau, 1715-1716, Collection musée Condé, Chantilly |
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| Femme de dos Artiste: Jean-Antoine Watteau No datation Collection Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans |
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| Femme de dos, Artiste Jean Antoine Watteau 18th century Collection du musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes |
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| L'enseigne de Gersaint Artiste Jean Antoine Watteau 1720 Collection Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin Source: Wikipédia |
Jean Antoine Watteau is the ideal artist to describe the first decade of the flying dress (1710-1720) because he was fascinated by the drapery of fabrics. This famous artist unfortunately died in 1721. This assures us that his works are all at the beginning of the fashion for flying dresses and a little at the end of the coats of the last chapter.
At the height of the fashion wave for coats-ruffles, or flying dresses, the panniers is decried as a deceptive device by the knight of Nisart, in a pamphlet, entitled «Satyre sur les cerceaux, paniers, criardes, manteaux-volants des femmes et sur les autres ajustements». I share with you a very short excerpt:
«Lorsqu'un ornement est nouveau,
Qu'il fatigue et qu'il incomode;
L'on veut avec un grand cerceau,
Paraitre Madame à la mode
(...)
L'une est maigre et voudrait cacher,
qu'elle n'a ni gorge ni taille;
Et l'autre voudrait empêcher,
Qu'on ne la mit parmi la canaille.
Chacune a donc intérêt,
Dans cette nouvelle structure,
Qui recèle quand il leur plaît,
Les disgrâces de la Nature »
''When an ornament is new,
That he tires and that he inconveniences;
We want with a big hoop,
Look fashionable madam
(...)
One is thin and would like to hide,
that she has neither throat nor waist;
And the other would like to prevent,
That she was not put among the rabble.
Each one therefore has an interest,
In this new structure,
Which conceals when it pleases them,
The disgraces of Nature ''
The book from which I took this extract, a collection of texts in verse and prose on costume in France, written by Paul Lacroix and published in 1852, identifies the year of this text in 1712. The original text is available at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and it is instead dated 1727. Thanks to Mrs. Charlotte Stephan for confirming this information. An so proof again that you must always be careful with secondary sources, they are not immune to errors.
The other fashion adjustment that appeared in the 1710s was the ''manteau volant'', literally a flying mantua, that gave the flying dress its name. The decade 1710 slowly transformed the formal mantua of the end of Louis XIV's reign into a ''flying mantua'' as illustrated in the series of paintings by Jean Antoine Watteau shown above. It is also called a ''robe ballante'', as in the letter from the Palatine cited above. The ''manteau volant'' is characterized by the total absence of bending at the waist. It is this visible lack of waist size that the Chevalier de Nisart denounces, arguing, among other things, that it is henceforth impossible to see whether a woman is pregnant or not and that this armor does not protect the virtue of the ladies. In the introduction to his satire, he writes that:
"The wisest or the least unreasonable cannot help blaming this excess to which the women and girls of the time make fashion go, when, under the shelter of a flying mantua and a rimmed skirt, of thirty feet in circumference, one thinks that it is possible to hide the disgraces of nature, or the marks that it leaves of its weaknesses. "
« Les plus sages ou les moins déraisonnables ne peuvent s'empêcher de blâmer cet excès où les femmes et les filles du temps font aller la mode, quand, sous l'abris d'un manteau volant et d'une jupe cerclée, de trente pieds de circonférence, l'on pense qu'on est possible de cacher les disgrâces de la nature, ou les marques qu'elle laisse de ses faiblesses.»
However, if the panniers had such large circumferences in the 18th century, it was more from the end of the 1720s than at the beginning of the 1710s. We can imagine that the size of the hoops increased slowly over the years; from the 1720s until being 30 feet according to Chevalier Nisart. In 1729, the artist Antoine Hérisset illustrates the baskets in this way:
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| Les paniers Antoine Hérisset 1729 Collection Risjkmuseum |
The panniers at the end of the 1720s remind me a lot of the crinolines of the 19th century. Round and wide panniers had a first period of glory in the 18th century. However, it is not this silhouette that will be retained as the flagship silhouette of this century, it is the one of the following chapter.
Another pamphlet responds to Chevalier Nisart, supposedly in 1712 according to the 1852 collection of an anonymous author under the title: « Réponse à la critique des femmes, sur leur manteaux-volants, paniers, criardes ou cerceaux, dont elles font enfler leurs jupes»(Response to the criticism of women, on their flying mantuas, panniers, hoops, with which they swell their skirts ). I believe that this is also another dating error from 1852 and that this text is from the end of the decade 1720, since it responds to the text of Chevalier Nisart of 1727.
«C’est une extrème absurdité
De vouloir critiquer la mode:
Ce tyran de la liberté
Veut qu'à son gré l’on s’accommode.
Je ne la suis qu'à petits pas:
Elle ne veut pas que l'on recule
Et si je ne la suivais pas,
J’en deviendrais plus ridicule. »
"This is extreme nonsense
To want to criticize fashion:
This tyrant of freedom
Wants to be accommodated at will.
I only follow it in small steps:
She doesn't want us to back down
What if I didn't follow her
It would make me more ridiculous. "
In other words, people were aware that fashion and its excesses could be laughable. Only a minority of madwomen dared to challenge the dictates of fashion in the 18th century. Especially since being in fashion was an obligation when you were a lady or a gentleman of quality to distinguish yourself from the people. For this social class, clothing is no longer just useful, it is pageantry. Likewise in 2021, although the majority of women say they are uncomfortable with their bra on, very few of them will dare to go to work or in the public space without it. Fashion and social conventions dictate how we should behave in society. Despite the three centuries that have passed since then, this statement is still true.
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| La collation Artist: François de Troy 1727 Source: Sotheby's |
The emergence and propagation of this fashion, denounced as more libertine, is possible by the type of governance of Philippe d'Orléans, which, let us remember, separates the public and private spheres. The people of the court no longer have the same social pressure to be in constant ''performance'' and can take the opportunity to release the pressure of religiosity that the end of the reign of the Sun King exerted. To be noted: Philippe d'Orléans himself was a great libertine in his private parties.
Most of the paintings by artist Jean-François de Troy play with the visual confusion of the ''robe volante'' and the dressing gown, creating an atmosphere of intimacy, not to say sensuality in an exterior or interior setting. If the decade of 1710 is that of Jean Antoine Watteau, that of 1720 is definitely that of Jean-François de Troy.
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| L'alarme Artist: Jean-François de Troy 1723 Collection V&A |
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| The Declaration of Love Artist: Jean-François de Troy 1724 Metropolitean Museum of Art |
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| The game of Pied-de-Boeuf After Jean-François de Troy 1725 Collection National Gallery |
By deliberately choosing dresses with a predominantly white color, the color of the body linens (the shirts), Jean-François de Troy suggests the colors of intimacy. Should we repeat the expressions of the time: « être comme cul et chemise »(to be like ass and shirt) for two inseparable things and « être nu en chemise » (to be naked in a shirt) when one is dressed in only one shirt.
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| The garther Artiste Jean-François de Troy 1724 Collection MET museum |
In the mid-1720s, the flying dresses had wide baskets. They no longer have stomach parts and they are closed at the front at the level of the skirt. Sometimes, we guess an assembly of buttons. The Mercure de France de Janvier 1726 describe the difference between the fashion of 1715 and 1725:
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| Mercure de France Janvier 1726 Source: RétroNews |
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| Mercure de France Janvier 1726 Source: RétroNews |
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| Mercure de France Janvier 1726 Source: RétroNews |
It should be noted here that the author of the Mercure de France informs us that the ladies wore a garment of breast support under the ''robe volante'' which he calls a ''corset'', those are called jumps in English. At the time, the ''corps'' (stays) and the ''corset'' (jumps) were both breast support and waist-defining garments. The ''corps'' (stays) is strongly boned while the ''corset'' (jumps) is not or the baleens that it has are only at the edges of the eyelets, as a reinforcement for them.
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| Jeune femme endormie Entourage de Jean-Baptiste Pater Anciennement attribuée à Jean François de Troy First half of 18th century Source: Sotheby's |
In 1729, ''robe volante'' established their dominance in women's fashion, as the Mercure de France of March of that year indicates «les robes volantes sont universellement en règne. On ne voit presque plus d’autres habits. »(The robes volantes are universally reigning. You hardly see any other clothes anymore). You can read the original text, taken from the BNF's RétroNews site in the following images, as well as an engraving from the same edition of the Mercure de France.
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| Mercure de France Mars 1729 Source: RétroNews |
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| Mercure de France Mars 1729 Source: RétroNews |
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| Mercure de France Mars 1729 Source: RétroNews |
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| Mercure de France Mars 1729 Source: RétroNews |
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| Mercure de France Mars 1729 Source: RétroNews |
As this edition talks about woman fashion, it mentions a weird word, a "bagnolette". They say that is no longer so fashionable. A "bagnolette'' this is a type of lady's headdress as shown in the following fashion board from Antoine Hérisset, also published in 1729.
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| Les Bagnolettes Planches de mode de Antoine Hérisset 1729 Collection Risjkmuseum |
Another fashion word written into the extract is a ''palatine''. Palatines are a kind of scarf that ladies wrap around their necks to keep themselves warm. We can see some of them in this painting:
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| Détail de L'hiver Artiste Nicolas Lancret avant 1731 Source: Sotheby's |
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| Revue de mousquetaires Artiste:Paul-Ponce-Antoine Robert de Séri 1729 Collection du château de Versailles |
This painting from 1729 illustrates the floating character of the ''robe volante''. Remember that the literal translation is flying dress. These ladies came to see the Musketeers' Review, which is a military protocol event. They are dressed to be seen in public. You can see that the pleats of the gown are very wide both in the front and in the back, which gives a "potato sack" look to this silhouette. From the position of their torso, we can guess that the whalebone stays is still present. Indeed, one can see a straightness of the spine although they are sitting on the grass. Also the gowns of the ''robe volante'' are often closed at the level of their skirts, we see it on the lady in white face and we guess it on the lady in salmon stripe.
During the 1720s, the size of the baskets increased, while remaining circular. We see it in the engravings of Antoine Hérisset that I believe to be at the turn of 1730.
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| Habit unis Damoiselle en panier Artiste Antoine Hérisset Non daté Source: Gallica |
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| Perruque à face Dame en robe Manche en Pagode Artiste Antoine Hérisset Non daté Source: Gallica |
The 1730s saw the baskets take an increasingly oval shape, narrow front to back and wide at the sides.
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| Madame Mercier entourée de sa famille Artiste Jacques Dumont dit Dumont Le Romain 1731 Collection du département des peintures du Musée du Louvres |
The lack of emphasis at the waist is clearly visible in this family portrait of Louis XV's nanny, Marie-Madeleine Mercier. It is noteworthy that all the ladies in this portrait, despite being of different ages, are wearing a ''robe volante''.
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| La Déclaration (1731), Artiste: Jean-François de Troy 1731 Collection du château de Charlottenburg Source: Meisterdrucke |
During the decade 1730, the panniers take an oval shape as for the back lady with her blue dress with pink flower. In this painting, some dresses have the waist flared like the lady in gray on the left and others like the back one in dark blue where the waist seems more accentuated. It seems rather an optical effect since the sleeve and the arm of the lady are placed so as to hide the waist, so we can not see the waist. The pink gown closes completely on the skirt while that of the lady in white remains open over its entire length. These are variations of the ''robe volante'' in the latter days of his reign.
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| Dame à sa toilette recevant un chevalier Artiste Jean-François de Troy 1734 Collection particulière Source: artifexinopere |
« For these two years past, if any woman comes in an Andrienne,Volante, or French sack, as it is called, either into St. Stephen’s or any other large church in Vienna, she is immediately ordered to withdraw. It was grown a custom among the ladies at Vienna, in the morning, to slip on a sack, without stays, or hardly any other covering, and in that garb hurry away to mass ; which indecent custom occasioned the present imperial prohibition. »
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| Femme préparant un repas dans un décor d'intérieur Artist André Bouys 1ère moitié XVIIIe siècle Source: Artnet |
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| Les oies de Frère Philippe Artiste Étienne Jeaurat 1734 Collection du musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes |
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| Le paysan cherchant son veau Artiste Étienne Jeaurat Non-daté Source: Dorotheum |
The examples of ''robes volantes'' in museum collections mainly come from the decades 1720-1730. The following ''robes volantes'' come from the collections of the Palais Galliera.
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| Robe volante 1720-1735 Collection Palais Galliera |
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| Robe volante 1720-1735 Collection Palais Galliera |
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| Robe volante 1720-1730 Collection Palais Galliera |
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| Robe volante 1720-1730 Collection Palais Galliera |
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| Robe volante 1720-1730 Collection Palais Galliera |
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| Robe volante 1730-1740 Collection Palais Galliera |
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| Robe volante 1730-1740 Collection Palais Galliera |
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| Esquisse Artiste Sébastien Leclerc 1696-1700 Source: Bibliothèque Numérique de Lyon |
I see in this engraving the beginnings of the ''manteaux volants''.
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| La sonnette a sonné, Abaisse la lanterne... Artiste:Nicolas Guérard Après 1667 Collection Musée Carnavalet |
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| Bassin de l'encelade Artiste Jacques Rigaud Vers 1729-1752 Collection du Château de Versailles |
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| Vue du Château de Trianon du côté du Parterre Auteur: Jacques Rigaud Non daté Source: Gallica |
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| Château de Versailles, vue de la Chapelle Auteur Anonyme Vers 1725 Collection du Château de Versailles |
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