Hunting and Riding Habits from 1660-1700

Frances Stuart duchess of Richmond and Lennox 1665

In his dairy entry for June 12 1666 Samyel Pepy,the great diarist of the Restoration,writes:

"Walking the galleries at Whitehall I find the ladies of honor dressed in their riding garbs,with coats and doublets with deep skirts,just,for all the world,like mine;and buttoned their doublets up to the breast ,with periwigs under their hats,so that,only for a long petticoat dragging under their men's coats,nobody could take them for women in any point whatsoever,which was an odde sight,and a sight did not please me"

Riding habits were always cut after the men's fashion,the jackets worn over very tight corsets.A cravat was also tied around the neck as a man would.The corsets might have made them uncomfortable wear for riding but the ladies sure looked fetching,despite Pepys misgivings.

Frances Teresa Stuart,c. 1660 Samuel Cooper 

La Grande Mademoiselle at the time of the Fronde,c. 1663

Princess Mary of Orange,1665 by Jan van Meytens

Portrait of a Lady in a Riding Habit by Godfrey Kneller

Recueil des Modes de la Cour de France,1670

Liselotte von der Pfalz by Louis Ferdinand Elle the Elder,1673

Mary of Modena,1675 Simon Verelst

Liselotte von der Pfalz,1689

"Habit de chasse",1690

"Habit de chasse",1693

Anna Maria Louisa de Medici,c. 1695 by Jan Frans van Douven

Hunting Habits in 1695 and 1698

Philis de la Charce,Heroine of Dauphinois,1690s

Riding Habit,end of 17th c.