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Sophia Western, Adam Buck

Sophia Western, Adam Buck
"Sophia Western", a March 20 1800 pin-up type print (or one of the "fancy pieces in aquatint and stipple depicting pretty girls in flimsy dresses [which] formed a large part of the business of many printsellers at the turn of the nineteenth century", as it's described in the book English Prints for the Collector by Stephen Calloway).

Engraved by J.C. Stadler and Piercy Roberts after a drawing by Adam Buck (Adam Buck and Angelica Kauffmann were apparently two of the most popular early 19th-century "pinup" artists, though that word hadn't yet come into use then).

Caption at bottom: "SOPHIA WESTERN: Adorned with all the charms in which Nature can array her, bedecked with beauty, youth, sprightliness, innocence, modesty and tenderness, breathing sweetness from her rosy lips and darting brightness from her sparkling eyes, the lovely Sophia comes!"

It's somewhat inadvertently humorous that this depicts the heroine of the 1749 novel Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, but shows her in the latest fashions of 1800, rather than in the very different historically-accurate hoopskirts of 1749 -- it would have been extremely difficult to jump rope in the clothing styles (and high-heeled shoes) of 1749...

The dishevelment of her clothes in the picture was not meant to contradict the word "modesty" in the caption, but was supposed to be understood as being the accidental and unintentional effect of her strenuous physical activity...

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