Not until the early 1640s can reliable engravings of English fashions be found. Most of Wenceslas Hollar’s 1639 series, “Ornatus Muliebris Anglicanus, or, the severall habits of English women from the Nobilitie to the Country woman, as they are in these times,” is slightly suspect as being imaginary or at best idealized, though the lady in waiting (Hollar’s no. 23) and the country woman (Hollar’s no. 26) walking on her iron-ring pattens may be portraits. Hollar’s “Theatrum Mulierum or Aula Veneris” of 1644 has a much stronger claim to represent the fashions of London, although some of the European women may be in the traditional clothes of their cities and states. The full-length female figures of the seasons are really costume portraits set against London backgrounds[27] (fig. 14), and, although charming in themselves, they are not true fashion plates, while those of the series of women’s heads in circles, which are not copied from other work, are simply portraits[28] of ladies whom Hollar actually knew in London. Notwithstanding his engravings of muffs,[29] it is most unlikely that Hollar had any connection with either a fashion house or a milliner’s shop in London. [Illustration: Figure 13.--SEEING, from a set of the _Five Senses_. Engraving by Jean Barrà, ca. 1625. (_Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, London._) {caption at end}] During the Commonwealth period (1648-60) Hollar’s work depicting costumes faded out, but the diarist John Evelyn was writing a little book, _Tyrannus, or the Mode_, which was published in 1661.[30] In it he mentions a French woman in London during the troubles, whose customers tormented her with inquiries about French fashions to such an extent that she used to devise “new Fancies out of her own Head, which were never worn in France.” Most likely she did not distribute fashion plates but displayed actual garments or miniature models, perhaps mounted as dolls (“babies”), as examples of new fashions. [Illustration: Figure 14.--WINTER. The lady wears a hood and mask, together with furs. She is walking in Cornhill, London. Engraving by Wencelas Hollar, 1643 (Parthey no. 609). (_Courtesy of British Museum, London._) {caption at end}] In the _Tyrannus_, Evelyn not only touched on the history and psychology of fashion but also went as far as to recommend a reformed dress for men, including the Persian vest and sash which was to be reflected to a certain extent in the fashions of the mid-1660s. Since he did not illustrate his theory, there has always been some dispute as to what the Persian dress actually was,[31] but in any case the fashion did not last. On the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Charles II, returning to England from Holland, retained Dutch fashions for a while (fig. 15). But, by 1670, English men’s dress approximated the French in style, although not in sumptuosity.