The fashion for white wedding dresses started in the mid-eighteenth century, although most people were married in coloured gowns. The women depicted in Toulmouche’s painting are fashionable as evidenced by the fashion plates and wedding ensembles of that period–from the silhouette of a small fitted waist and a bell skirt (Fig. The use of the color white, ivory or cream in wedding dresses has stood the test of time, in fact, it is now considered quite adventurous when a bride gets married in another color. In The Hesitant Fiancée, Auguste Toulmouche steps away from his usual depiction of beautiful yet idle women Emile Zola described as “Toulmouche’s delicious dolls.

To pay for her grandmother’s heart operation she needs his money, but it comes with strings attached.As for the younger girl in the background, she is dressed in an almost dusty blush-colored gown of either duchess silk satin or taffeta. The Timeline offers scholarly contributions to the public knowledge of the history of fashion and design. The jokes aren't about people, they're about non-existent stereotypes, and it's only the inevitablity of plots like this one that means they'll get together at the end of the movie; this is the sort of story which has me saying "I give them one month, and then Carroll is back out in the field dealing with rough men and sexy gold diggers, and she's back in the lab looking at bugs.

A reluctant bride, presumably coming from an affluent family as evidenced by her rather opulent bridal dress, sits in a parlor room before the wedding ceremony. The woman to the left of the bride in a silk grey dress with a fur-trimmed brown dolman, and the women to the right wears a burnt orange velvet fur-trimmed dress. During the 1860s, Toulmouche refined his style, and began exploring more complex compositional structures.

Works such as The Hesitant Fiancée, 1866, demonstrates a new confidence in the intricate composition of four women who attempt to persuade the reluctant (and gorgeously dressed) bride to overcome her fears. This is a rather dull and predictable romantic comedy as they deal with the children and come to realize at the last minute that they love each other. The bride is juxtaposed by the young girl in the background, who at her tender age and naïveté, still considers marriage as a future dream. Her gown is of a bluish-grey tone silk satin material, and her dolman has an exquisite pattern achieved either through embroidery or jacquard material.