Lady with a Parasol

This detail of an illustration from the 19th Century Fashion magazine "La Mode Illustree" was engraved after a drawing by Anaïs Toudouze, a famous woman artist of the period who was at the centre of a talented family of artists and art critics in the Belle Epoche. Her father was the artist Alexandre-Marie Colin. Colin's three daughers, Adele, Heloise and Laure were "responsible for many of the most charming fashion-plates of the mid-nineteenth century," according to Vyvian Holland (the son of Oscar Wilde) in his book "Hand Coloured Fashion Plates." The married names of the three sisters were Anais Toudouze, Heloise Leloire and Laure Noel. Toudouze's husband was the architect and engraver Gabriel Toudouze. Her son became a well-known art critic in the circles around Emile Zola. And her daughter, Isabelle Toudouze, continued in her mother's footsteps as a fashion print artist.