Button, France, 1789-1790

Button, France, 1789-1790 is an object recorded by Victoria and Albert Museum, dated 1789-1790. The museum's brief description reads: Silk satin, copperplate-printed portrait of a political figure from the French Revolution; France, about 1790. Museum description: This is one button of a set of eighteen (nos. T.39 to 39Q-1948). At this period sets of men's suit buttons were often topical in design. These are set with satin printed with the likeness and names of persons politically prominent in the early stages of the French Revolution. Some of them are: the advocate Louis-Ferdinand Bonnet (1760-1839), member of the States General and a leader of the anti-royalist party Le Comte Charles Malo François de Lameth (1757-1832), writer, orator and political reformer Dominique-Joseph Garat le jeune (1749-1833), orator and constitutional reformer Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, Comte Mirabeau (1749-91), Director-General of finance to Louis XVI, Charles-Frederick Necker (1726-1804), President of the Constituent Assembly Jacques-Guillaume Thouret (1746-94). The museum record gives material recorded as gilt metal, glass, silk satin; measurements Diameter 1.5 in; Height 13 mm; Diameter 38.2 mm; place associated: France. These details come from the holding museum's own record; how far this object represents a wider collectible type has not yet been independently verified.