18th Century Artificial Flowers
Flowers depicted on dresses, in hats, or in headdresses were probably artificial.
The flowers tumbling out of the small trunk in front of Miss Rattle dressing for the Pantheon (1772) seem to be artificial flowers for embellishing her hair and her gown.
Additional Resources
Conservation treatment of artificial flowers from the 18th century, Part 1 and Part 2
Artificial Flowers in the Credit Records of an Eighteenth-Century French Fashion Merchant
The History of Artificial Flowers: How Did It All Start?
Pretty Posies: The Colonial Revival’s Influence on the Use of Flowers in Historic Interiors
Fleuriste Artificiel
(The Maker of Artificial Flowers)
A workshop where several male and female workers and children are variously occupied in making artificial flowers; one in a is arranging flowers together, one in b is cutting them out with cutters, others in c are making flowerbuds, a female worker in d is embossing with the embossing machine, one in e is spreading out the vellum, canvas, or other fabric; one in f is wrapping the vellum around the wire, while a young boy in g is busy turning the wheel of the spinning machine; a woman in h is embossing with an iron, and the others in i are making flowerbuds, assembling flowers, etc.
From the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (1765).
For more (including patterns for petals and leaves, and diagrams for the tools involved with making artificial flowers), see the ARTFL Encyclopédie.
Trade Cards for Manufacturers of Artificial Flowers
© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.