ANNA MUTHESIUS (1870-1961)
DAS EIGENKLEID DER FRAU, 1903
84 pp., with 14 plates, cover illustration and remains of original green silk ties. Krefeld, Kramer & Baum, 1903.
16cm x 12.8cm
Note: This book bears an Art Nouveau binding designed by Frances Macdonald McNair, who with her husband J. Herbert McNair, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh made up a group of radical artists and designers known as 'The Four'. The author Anna Muthesius and her husband Hermann, the architectural writer, became close friends with the ‘The Four’ after several trips to Glasgow and the Willow Tearooms. The book is considered a seminal text in the development of early twentieth-century women’s fashion. Muthesius believed women should have the freedom to choose their own clothes, styling and fabrics. Emphasis was placed on the rejection of the heavy, restrictive Victorian fashions of the day. The movement was also political in its aims, and part of wider societal moves to liberate women in both the public and private spheres. The book and the form of dressing that it championed represented an outlet for radical expression for women and aligned itself well with McNair’s artistic representation of the female form. The dresses were usually made by their designers and the book includes plates showing the Macdonald sisters wearing such dresses along with similar examples designed by Jessie Newbery and worn by her daughters, Mary and Elsie. The original pencil drawing for the cover image was sold in these rooms on 3rd November 2020, lot 361.