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Dressing for the Masquerade

Image credit: The Henry Barber Trust, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham

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Notes

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Four women dress for a masquerade; according to a paper held by the dishevelled figure to the right, it is to be held at the Pantheon in Oxford Street. She is disguised as a madwoman, a common guise for masqueraders; another dresses in male attire, complete with a tricorn hat. Two other fashionable women admire their exotic masks and costumes in mirrors. They are attended by the old and ugly who point up their beauty. The overturned chair in the foreground symbolises the topsy turvy world of the masquerade and the transgressive possibilities of disguise.

The Barber Institute of Fine Arts

Birmingham

Title

Dressing for the Masquerade

Date

1790

Medium

pencil, watercolour, pen & ink on paper

Measurements

H 32.5 x W 43.8 cm

Accession number

48.9

Acquisition method

purchased, 1948

Work type

Drawing

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The Barber Institute of Fine Arts

University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, West Midlands B15 2TS England

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