Ruffles & Ribbons: Fashion Plates from the Time of Marie Antoinette

Offered in conjunction with the exhibition by the same name at The Frick Collection, Ruffles & Ribbons: Fashion Plates from the Time of Marie Antoinette explores hand-colored engravings of French fashion in the late 18th century. Known as fashion plates, the Galerie des modes et costumes français (1778–87) was the largest and most influential series of its kind produced during the period, which documented the dazzling fashions of a pivotal moment in French history. Its remarkable success anticipated the emergence of modern fashion magazines.

Yifu Liu is the Anne L. Poulet Curatorial Fellow at The Frick Collection. Previously, he was a doctoral fellow at the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History at Boston College, and he served in the curatorial and education departments of the Morgan Library, Brooklyn Museum, and Princeton University Art Museum.