Reassembling Antonio Rodríguez's Colección general de los trages de España (1801-1804): Spanish costume books and sartorial knowledge networks in the early nineteenth century

Abstract

In the six decades between 1777 and 1836, five costume books – collections of prints depicting modes of dress worn by one or multiple groups in society – were published in Madrid. These works were a turning point for sartorial imagery in Spain, heralding a new visual language and responding to contemporary cultural concerns. Despite this, the Spanish costume books have received little interrogation in their original collective form; there has been no sustained study of the manner in which these collections were produced, circulated, and consumed, nor of their enduring impact on perceptions of Spain and ‘Spanishness’. A confluence of factors has formed this gap: the relative lack of attention paid to print-making as an art form, the disassembly of the books for the use of individual prints in other scholarship, and the long shadow cast by Francisco Goya over artistic production in Enlightenment Spain. This dissertation seeks to reverse these factors through an investigation of the largest and most comprehensive early Spanish costume book, Antonio Rodríguez Onofre’s Coleccion general de los trages que en la actualidad se usan en Espa ́ na principiada ̃ en el ano 1801 en Madrid ̃ [General collection of costumes that are currently used in Spain, begun in 1801 in Madrid] (Madrid: Librería de Castillo, 1801-1804). Across seven chapters, Rodríguez’s collection is analysed through the intersection of dress history, print culture, and Spanish history. Building on recent scholarship regarding the cultural meanings of modes of dress and foreign responses to Spanish culture, several new areas of investigation are introduced, including Rodríguez’s unpublished preparatory drawings, subsequent reproductions of his prints, and the existence of two versions of the Colección general de los trages de España. Rodríguez’s own career is also explored in far greater depth than attempted in previous studies, and he is foregrounded within this research as a fundamental contributor to visual representations of Spain and Spanish people. Spanish costume books are also considered in their role as vehicles for transmitting sartorial knowledge between Spain and Europe and the Americas. A catalogue of extant original copies of Antonio Rodríguez’s Colección general de los trages de España has been compiled as part this project, establishing for the first time the scale of the work in terms of its publication, its audience, and its early distribution networks. Using Rodríguez’s collection as a representative model, this thesis reconstructs the systems for the dissemination of sartorial imagery in and out of Spain, demonstrating how costume prints shaped and circulated ideas about Spanish dress at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The prevalent theory in scholarship regarding Rodríguez’s audience – that his collection was produced for a foreign gaze – is challenged here; the Colección general de los trages de España is analysed instead as an internal and self-aware construction of Spanish ‘types’ for Spanish viewers. The reception of Rodríguez’s work outside of Spain is thus recontextualised as consumption by a secondary audience. Ultimately, this thesis defines the role and function of costume books in Spain at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It distinguishes them as a distinct genre within Spanish art, and de-anonymises the visual legacy of their creators.