1806 The Sculpture Gallery In The Louvre Museum, Paris, France. Illustrations by Francis Courboin. via Les Modes de Paris. (PD-Art) Although this is in Paris, there were similar places in England where Jane Austen and her contemporaries would meet to admire art such as paintings and sculptures.
The Louvre was opened as a museum in 1793 and admission was free to the public on weekends. The antique sculpture collection was added in 1800 into the former apartments of Anne of Austria or the petite galerie. The woman wears a cashmere shawl. These shawls, imported from India, were ironically made more popular after the 1806 continental embargo, making cashmere shawls very expensive. Her bonnet has feathers and is held in place with a silk ribbon, a style very popular during the time of Napoleon I. (PD-Art) Illustrations by François Courboin from Octave Uzanne’s Les Modes de Paris. Variations du goût et de l’esthétique de la femme, 1797-1897, L. Henry May, Paris, 1898, or from the English translation of the same work: Fashion in Paris : the various phases of feminine taste and aesthetics from 1797 to 1897, William Heinemann, London, 1898. Modes De Paris via Brown University Library.
