Print, etching

Full length standing female figure. Front view. The French designer Hubert Gravelot, who taught drawing at St Martin's Lane, was a major influence in the English adoption of the French rococo style. His impact was particularly felt among local engravers and book illustrators, many of whom worked with his designs.
By the mid-18th century, many of London's print shops were located on the Strand and at the southern end of St Martin's Lane. Gravelot's fashion plates were aimed at a type of middle-class purchaser who wanted to emulate the life-styles of the gentry. These plates were not intended simply as decoration. Like an etiquette book, they also provided a guide to polite manners and fashionable dress.

The drawings for these prints were probably made from articulated dolls or lay figures, like the one that Roubiliac owned which can be seen nearby.
Museum of London