Hand Colored Engraving of Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Madame de Sévigné, 1900

About this sheet

Antique print titled 'MADAME DE SEVIGNE' Original antique print of Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Madame de Sévigné.

Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné (5 February 1626 – 17 April 1696), also widely known as Madame de Sévigné or Mme de Sévigné, was a French aristocrat, remembered for her letter-writing. Most of her letters, celebrated for their wit and vividness, were addressed to her daughter, Françoise-Marguerite de Sévigné. She is revered in France as one of the great icons of French 17th-century literature.

Marie de Rabutin-Chantal was born in the fashionable Place des Vosges (then called the Place Royale), Paris, to an old and distinguished family from Burgundy. Her father, Celse Bénigne de Rabutin, baron de Chantal, was the son of Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, a friend and disciple of Saint Francis de Sales; her mother was Marie de Coulanges. Her father was killed during the English attack on the Isle of Rhé in July 1627. His wife did not survive him by many years, and Marie was left an orphan at the age of seven. She then passed into the care of her maternal grandparents. When her grandfather, Philippe de Coulanges, died in 1636, her uncle, Christophe de Coulanges, abbé of Livry, became her guardian.

This print originates from ' LA MÉSANGÈRE, Pierre and LANTÉ, Louis Marie. Costumes des Femmes Françaises du XIIe au XVIIIe siècle. Paris: Librairie Charles Tallandier, 1900.

This beautiful work tracing changes in French costume from the 12th to 18th century, stunning folio-sized hand-colored engraved plates depicting period fashions on famous French women who were celebrated for their talent or their beauty in the relevant periods.