Costumes of the Greeks and Romans
By Thomas Hope
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About this ebook
From headdresses to sandals, from warrior's armor to priestess's robes, the authentic costumes of people from all walks of life in the Roman and Greek civilizations are here pictured comprehensively and clearly. Three hundred finely drawn, detailed engravings (containing over 700 illustrations) show just what was worn by the poets, philosophers, priests and priestesses, peasants, Bacchanalians, emperors, generals, Amazons, and virgins of a bygone age.
Carefully copied from ancient vases and statuary by Thomas Hope (1770–1831), a British collector and designer, these engravings combine an unusual clarity of style with unquestioned authenticity. Their range, too, is unusually great, for besides the many plates on the costumes of the Greeks and Romans, there are representative illustrations of the typical dress of such other civilizations as the Phrygian, Egyptian, Parthian, Etruscan, and Persian.
In addition, scores of engravings are devoted to such now-forgotten objects as ancient musical instruments (the lyre, double flute, pipes of Pan, etc.), Bacchanalian implements, articles of furniture, women's trinkets and jewelry, sarcophagi, altars, and other adjuncts to ancient life.
Such comprehensiveness makes this book indispensable to costume designers, stage fitters, and producers of classic plays, students of fashion design, and others interested in ancient costumes. The material included here is covered in no ordinary history, and only here can the interested reader discover just how the draping of the Greek robe was achieved, or what was worn at festivals and funerals by the various classes.
Art directors, advertising managers, and others on the lookout for unusual and eye-catching illustrations will also treasure this collection. All of the engravings are royalty free and may be used in any way, whether as striking contrasts to modern styles in dress, jewelry, or furniture; for historical perspective; for mood pieces; or simply as unusual attention-getters.
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Costumes of the Greeks and Romans - Thomas Hope
DOVER BOOKS ON FASHION
ACKERMANN’S COSTUME PLATES, Rudolph Ackermann. (0-486-23690-0)
ALTMAN’S SPRING AND SUMMER FASHIONS CATALOG, 1915, B. Altman & Co. (0-486-28527-8)
BRITISH COSTUME FROM EARLIEST TIMES TO 1820: WITH 468 ILLUSTRATIONS, Mrs. Charles H. Ashdown. (0-486-41813-8)
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH FASHION PLATES IN FULL COLOR, Stella Blum (ed.). (0-486-24331-1)
EVERYDAY FASHIONS OF THE THIRTIES AS PICTURED IN SEARS CATALOGS, Stella Blum (ed.). (0-486-25108-X)
EVERYDAY FASHIONS OF THE TWENTIES AS PICTURED IN SEARS AND OTHER CATALOGS, Stella Blum. (0-486-24134-3)
FASHIONS AND COSTUMES FROM GODEY’S LADY’S BOOK, Stella Blum (ed.). (0-486-24841-0)
PARIS FASHIONS OF THE 1890s: A PICTURE SOURCEBOOK, Stella Blum (ed.). (0-486-24534-9)
VICTORIAN FASHIONS AND COSTUMES FROM HARPER’S BAZAR,
1867–1898, Stella Blum. (0-486-22990-4)
WESTERN WORLD COSTUME: AN OUTLINE HISTORY, Carolyn G. Bradley. (0-486-41986-X)
HISTORIC COSTUME IN PICTURES, Braun and Schneider. (0-486-23150-X)
ENGLISH CHILDREN’S COSTUME 1775–1920, Iris Brooke. (0-486-42984-9)
AMERICAN DRESS PATTERN CATALOGS, 1873–1909, Nancy Bryk. (0-486-25654-5)
ENGLISH WOMEN’S CLOTHING IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, C. Willett Cunnington. (0-486-26323-1)
FASHION AND WOMEN’S ATTITUDES IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, C. Willett Cunnington. (0-486-43190-8)
HISTORY OF UNDERCLOTHES, C. Willett Cunnington & Phyllis Cunnington. (0-486-27124-2)
AMERICAN VICTORIAN COSTUME IN EARLY PHOTOGRAPHS, Priscilla Harris Dalrymple. (0-486-26533-1)
DESIGNS BY ERTÉ; FASHION DRAWINGS AND ILLUSTRATIONS FROM HARPER’S BAZAR,
Erté. (0-486-23397-9)
ERTÉ’S FASHION DESIGNS, Erté. (0-486-24203-X)
ERTÉ’S THEATRICAL COSTUMES IN FULL COLOR, Erté. (0-486-23813-X)
FRANKLIN SIMON FASHION CATALOG FOR 1923, Franklin Simon & Co. (0-486-27854-9)
VICTORIAN AND EDWARDIAN FASHION, Alison Gernsheim. (0-486-24205-6)
WHAT PEOPLE WORE, Douglas Gorsline. (Available in U.S. only.) (0-486-28162-0)
Paperbound unless otherwise indicated. Available at your book dealer, online at www.doverpublications.com, or by writing to Dept. 23, Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, NY 11501. For current price information or for free catalogs (please indicate field of interest), write to Dover Publications or log on to www.doverpublications.com and see every Dover book in print. Each year Dover publishes over 500 books on fine art, music, crafts and needlework, antiques, languages, literature, children’s books, chess, cookery, nature, anthropology, science, mathematics, and other areas.
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
two volumes bound as one
(formerly titled: Costume of the Ancients)
This Dover edition, first published in 1962, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published by William Miller in 1812 under the title Costume of the Ancients. The work previously appeared in two volumes, but this Dover edition is complete in one volume.
This book belongs to the Dover Pictorial Archive Series. You may use the designs and illustrations for graphics and crafts applications, free and without special permission, provided that you include no more than ten in the same publication or project. (For permission for additional use, please write to: Permissions Department, Dover Publications, Inc., 180 Varick Street, New York, N.Y. 10014.)
However, republication or reproduction of any illustration by any other graphic service, whether it be in a book or in any other design resource, is strictly prohibited.
9780486137315
Manufactured in the United States of America
Dover Publications, Inc.
31 East 2nd Street
Mineola, N.Y. 11501
Table of Contents
DOVER BOOKS ON FASHION
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction - ON THE COSTUME OF THE ANCIENTS
COSTUME OF THE EGYPTIANS
COSTUME OF THE ASIATICS
GRECIAN COSTUME
COSTUME OF THE ROMANS
A Note on the Artists and Engravers
Costumes of the Greeks and Romans - VOLUME ONE
Costumes of the Greeks and Romans - VOLUME TWO
Introduction
ON THE COSTUME OF THE ANCIENTS
ATHOROUGH proficiency in drawing the external anatomy of the human frame must be confessed the first requisite of all historical painting. It is indispensable to the correct representation not only of the parts that are left bare, but even of the clothing in which others are enveloped. If the painter cannot draw correctly the naked figure, he cannot array it according to truth; since the very folds of the raiment must depend on the forms and motions of the body and limbs underneath: above all, he cannot attire it with elegance; since, in order to render his figure pleasing to the eye, the general attitude and proportions of the frame itself should ever remain distinctly perceptible even through the fullest drapery. Where the human figure, instead of only being covered, is concealed by the garment, it no longer offers beauties superior to what the various articles of apparel might have displayed, collected in a mere bundle.
Even the most thorough knowledge, however, of those peculiarities of the human skeleton and muscle which remain unvaried from age to age, is not yet alone sufficient to constitute a correct historical painter.
To attempt representing a real event, and to violate in the execution all truth of costume,—to clothe (as Paul Veronese has done) Alexander in French brocade, and Statira in Genoa cut velvet, is before-hand wantonly to mar the best fruits of one’s labour, the applause of the judicious. It is offering a masquerade instead of a historic subject, a riddle in place of a tale clearly told. The ignorant and the vulgar, who only notice the brilliancy of the hues, who hardly enquire into the particulars of the subject, may applaud; but the man of discernment, who expects that the performance should accord with the name, will remain dissatisfied. However masterly the touch, however fascinating the colours, he still will consider the work as being at best but a splendid absurdity, calculated to excite at least as much laughter as admiration. Those who to a fine natural feeling join a cultivated taste, can only receive unqualified pleasure from that scrupulous imitation of historical truth, carried even into the minutest accessory parts, which alone gives every personage the peculiar physiognomy and every scene the individual locality that serve to distinguish them from all others; and that bring the place and the action at once home to the mind of a well informed observer.
It must be owned, indeed, that the knowledge of costume requisite for this purpose is not always as easily attainable as the proficiency in anatomy above urged. For while the natural forms of