Pretty In Pink

What’s your favourite colour? Perhaps for Joséphine Bowes it was pink. This was the trendsetting colour in the 19th century and Joséphine was a fashion devotee.  Joséphine shopped at Charles Frederick Worth, who was haute couturier to Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoléon III, whose style she copied. The Bowes Museum has copies of bills from Worth from 1872 when Joséphine spent 11,184 francs (about £114,000).

There is another pink dress in a portrait by French artist Charles Chaplin (1825-1891). The picture, Girl in a Pink Dress, is one of five of his works in the museum.  Chaplin liked to paint woman in their everyday life, using a palette of pastel shades of pink, blue and yellow. He accentuates almost transparent flesh tones and was praised for his ‘lifelike portrayal of satins, gauzes and taffetas’.  He is believed to have been a personal friend of Joséphine Bowes.

Chaplin was also a painting tutor. He was one of only a handful of artists who opened their studios to classes exclusively for women. After a long and successful career, Chaplin died in 1881 a wealthy man whose paintings hang in major museums around the world.