Friday Video: Inside an 1885 Dinner Dress

Susan reporting,

This short but fascinating video features the work of the Costume Institute Conservation Laboratory of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The star of this video, however, is this c1885 silk dinner dress, right. Made by New York dressmaker Mme. Grapanche (her label is still stitched inside the dress), the dress represents the most extreme version of a bustle - that huge draped and constructed extension to the backside of the dress, that would have been worn over a cage-like or padded support tied around the wearer's waist. Of course, this was a high-fashion version, worn by an elite woman with a taste for drama (Madame Olenska!), but the bustle style in less exaggerated forms was popular among 1880s women of every class.

Here Jessica Regan, assistant curator in the Costume Institute, shows us what was sewn inside the dress to help support so much fabric and style. Of course, modern fashionistas might look at this in bewilderment: how does one sit in all that bustled splendor? We have the answer right here, in another Friday Video.

For another analysis of this dress, see this blog post from the Museum at FIT.

Ladies' Facilities in the 1700s to 1900s

Loretta reports:

In the course of trying to get a bit more information about this Victorian era public urinal, at the Museum of London, I wound up in a dead end. All I know about it is more or less what I’d learned about the public facilities in Paris.

However, I did discover more about how and where ladies answered Nature’s call during the 18th and 19th centuries. The short answer: It wasn't easy.

These days, we are frustrated by the long lines outside ladies’ lavatories: Why don’t they install more stalls? But at least we can find rather nice facilities. In London, for instance, I found such interesting and elegant ones that I started photographing them.

In the time of my stories, ladies’ public facilities were not so elegant, to the extent that they existed at all.

According to the Museum of London’s feature on Vauxhall Gardens:

“Respectable’ women, in particular, were suddenly in a situation where access to a discreet and reasonably hygienic toilet facility could not be taken for granted. In Vauxhall, a communal women’s privy appears to have existed, and was illustrated in a satirical print by the artist Thomas Rowlandson, although this may be an exaggerated representation – Rowlandson was known for his scatological and titillating images of women. Still, many women – and men – must have taken advantage of the garden’s dark corners and convenient plants.”

The Inside of Lady's Garden at Vauxhall (1788)

Susan has discussed this Rowlandson illustration in detail here. You can read the full Museum of London article here.

It's rather shocking to discover that it wasn’t until the 1920s that busineses began providing accommodations for women . This was also, I notice, about the time that women got the vote.

Rowlandson, Sympathy, or A Family On A Journey Laying The Dust (1784),

Images: Victorian urinal at Museum of London photograph by me; Rowlandson, The Inside of Lady's Garden at Vauxhall (1788), courtesy Yale University Library; Thomas Rowlandson, Sympathy, or A Family On A Journey Laying The Dust (1784), courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Fashions for Sometime in 1896

Walking Dresses 1896

Loretta reports:

My searches online produced a wealth of 1890s fashion plates. Unfortunately, nobody ever saved the fashion descriptions. However, what turned up in the Met collections is, despite the lack of documentation, unexpectedly enlightening.There are descriptions, in French, which I leave you to translate. But what’s unusual about these images is that they appear to be colorized photographs: in other words, these aren’t the stylized images that portray anatomically impossible women’s bodies (please compare and contrast with images in my post of October 2016). I imagine some 19th century version of photoshopping went on, but at least these offer a much better sense of the clothing.

La Mode Pratique was a lovely magazine. If you’re interested in 1880s-1920s French fashion, you might want to look at this blog for samples of the pages. At the bottom of the page are links to more posts about the magazine.

Evening Dress 1896

Images courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Dresses 1896

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

A Formal Ball Gown from the French Court, c1780

Susan reporting,

For fashion historians, there are some garments from the past that become celebrities in their own right, featured over and over in books, exhibitions, and on Pinterest. These garments have earned this status for a number of reasons: because of the fame of the original owner or maker, exceptional craftsmanship, rare textiles or embellishments, or simply because of their beauty.

(As always, please click on the images to enlarge them. I know these photos are a bit dark, but the galleries were low-lit to preserve the textiles - a fair trade-off.)

The dress shown here qualifies on every count. It's currently on display through July 29, 2018 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of the Visitors to Versailles: 1682-1789 exhibition (see here, here, and here for my posts featuring other objects from the exhibition.) This exquisite ball gown, or robe parée, would have been worn at only the most formal occasions at the French court at Versailles in the late 18thc.. Once linked to Queen Marie-Antoinette herself, the gown is still attributed to the queen's dressmaker, Marie Jeanne "Rose" Bertin (1747-1813).

The gown definitely belonged to a woman of very high status at the court, and it's exactly the kind of luxurious and costly garment that would bring the ire of French revolutionaries a decade later. Not only is the surface design - featuring draped ribbons, flowers, and peacock feathers - sophisticated and elegant, but the execution of the embroidery on the cream-colored silk satin is extraordinary. The list of the elements on the exhibition placard shows the complexity of the the needlework: silk embroidery, appliques of satin, metallic threads, chenille, sequins, and applied glass paste. Everything was designed to sparkle by candlelight, and make the wearer the center of attention as she danced.

What to me is even more extraordinary is that the gown remains a showpiece even though it has been significantly altered. Originally worn over the wide hoops (pannier) required for 18thc court dress, a later owner had the petticoat (skirt) narrowed to a bell-shape and the bodice remade to conform to mid-19thc tastes, and likely to make it more wearable and lighter as well. The ruffles shown are also later additions. No matter: it's still breathtakingly beautiful.

Formal Ball Gown, attributed to Marie Jeanne "Rose" Bertin, c1780s, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. Photographs ©2018 Susan Holloway Scott.

Extravagant Hats on French Ladies, 1788

Susan reporting,

As much as I enjoy the immense variety of historical images that now can be discovered thanks to the internet, staring at a jpg on my laptop screen will never replace being able to see the real thing. 

Sometimes, that experience is a revelation. One of the paintings featured in the new Visitors to Versailles: 1682-1789 exhibition (currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art) is this one: Promenade of the Ambassadors of Tipu Sultan in the Park of Saint-Cloud. The entire painting is shown below (and as always, please click on the images to enlarge them.)

It's a justly famous painting, for it shows how truly international the 18thc world could be: the delegation of Tipu Sultan had come halfway around the world to seek French assistance in removing the British from Mysore, and to negotiate more favorable direct trading with France. Crowds of French people have come to welcome (and likely to gawk at) the ambassadors as they walk in the Park at Saint-Cloud.

When this painting is used to illustrate the international politics of the late 18thc, it's usually a small reproduction that emphasizes the crowds, the lawns, and the nodding greenery. But when I saw it in person, all I could see was the HATS.

The late 1780s were a time of oversized and extravagant hats and caps, with curving brims, plumes, buckles, ribbons, silk flowers, and silk gauze ruffles. The variety of fashionable examples - like wedding cakes for the head! - captured in this painting are truly stunning. It's all in miniature, too; the entire painting measures about 38" wide, so most of these figures are at most a couple of inches tall.

There are also some delightful small dramatic scenes: the little boy either having a tantrum or a fainting fit while his nursemaid scowls up at his negligent mother, upper left; footmen in elaborate royal livery try to contain the crowds around the ambassadors, upper right; and two women have decided it's all too much and have retreated beneath their wide parasol to a park bench, where a black-clad gentleman in a wonderful wig (perhaps a clergyman?) has joined them, lower left.

But my favorite detail, lower right, shows a man selling prints and sheet music. He's wearing jaunty striped trousers and a long-tailed coat as he stands before his wares, which are pinned on rows of strings to display. He's playing a horn for his dog, who is dancing on its hind-legs with a stick in its front paws - what better way to attract customers?

Promenade of the Ambassadors of Tipu Sultan in the Park of Saint-Cloud by Charles-Eloi Asselin, 1788, Cité de la Céramique-Sèvres et Limoges. 

A 1770s Dress Worn by One of the "Visitors to Versailles"

Susan reporting,

Last week I previewed a major new exhibition called Visitors at Versailles, 1682-1789, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York through July 29, 2018. Created in partnership with the Château de Versailles along with loans from many other institutions, the exhibition brings together nearly two hundred paintings, drawings, tapestries, porcelains sculptures, furnishings, books, and costumes (and even a sedan chair) to recreate the era when the palace of Versailles and its gardens truly were the center not only of the France, but also the world of fashion, diplomacy, and sophistication.

Versailles was a public court, drawing visitors from around the world. Yet it wasn't just courtiers jockeying for a moment of king's favor. During the reigns of Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI, Versailles brought together the leading artists, musicians, intellectuals, and master artisans in one place as well, and visitors as diverse as Benjamin Franklin and the seven-year-old crown prince of Cochinchina (modern Vietnam). We can't go back in time to visit Versailles in its 17thc-18thc glory ourselves, but this exhibition is an excellent introduction, and highly recommended.

One of the first galleries features the lavish clothing required by the French court, and I'll be featuring some of these costumes in future blogs. The style of this beautiful silk dress was called a sack, or, more glamorously, a robe à la française. According to the museum's gallery notes:

"Characterized by free-flowing back pleats that extended from shoulder to hem, the robe à la française had been largely abandoned by the 1770s - except at court. A woman conveyed her status not only through the display of rich textiles, but also through her elegant negotiation of the cumbersome hoop under the large skirt, a learned skill intended to give the impression of natural grace."

While the dress and its matching petticoat have survived together, the original stomacher (the triangular insert that filled in the two sides of the bodice) has not. This isn't that unusual. A stomacher was an important 18thc accessory. Because stomachers were pinned into place for wearing, women could easily update an older gown or change its look by swapping stomachers.

According to the Met's website, this dress has been displayed several times before, and it has been shown each time with a different stomacher - perhaps in the spirit of that 18thc lady. For the current exhibition, the dress's fabric and trim were carefully recreated for a matching stomacher inspired by contemporary fashion prints. Earlier exhibitions have featured a stomacher with buttons and lace, and another sported rows of exuberant bows. It's also interesting to see the changing styles in modern display mannequins. Which do you prefer?

 Link for more information about Visitors at Versailles, 1682-1789.

Above: Dress (robe à la française), French, c1770-75. Silk faille with cannelé stripes, brocaded in polychrome floral motif, trimmed with self fabric and silk fly fringe. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Top left image by Susan Holloway Scott; all others Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Friday Video: Listen to the Earliest Known Surviving Piano

Susan reporting,

While we were away on our spring break, we missed one of those daily celebrations that the Internet so loves, and honors with a hashtag: #PianoDay. Fittingly, this was the eighty-eighth day of the year, with a day for each of a piano's keys.

But perhaps everyday should be piano day. In the world of instruments, pianos are relative newcomers. The first were invented by Venetian-born Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655-1732), who built instruments for the Medici court in Florence. The piano in this video is the earliest known to survive today, and is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. For more information and additional photos, see the museum's entry here.

In this video, pianist Dongsok Shin performs the Sonata in d minor, K.9 by Domenico Scarlatti. Enjoy!

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Friday Video: A Moving Panorama of the Mississippi Valley

Loretta reports:

Many of the 1830s magazines I peruse include reviews of recently installed panoramas (please scroll down for the review about Niagara Falls). The moving panorama is also a large painting, but where the panorama requires the viewer to move around a room, the moving panorama is an early "moving picture." Using spools, it scrolls across a stage, creating the illusion of traveling along a scenic route.

Before photography and movies, both the still and the moving paintings offered Londoners as well as Americans views of distant locales. Since the Londoners seem to have been especially curious about the U.S. and its wildernesses, I’m sure they would have enjoyed John J. Egan’s “Panorama of the Monumental Grandeur of the Mississippi Valley”—all 348 feet of it, and a very rare survivor.


Video: John J. Egan's "Panorama of the Monumental Grandeur of the Mississippi Valley"

Credits Animation: Paul Caro Photography: Saint Louis Art Museum © 2015 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image is a still from the video.
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Fashions for March 1825

Promenade Dress March 1825

Loretta reports:

If you compare with last month’s fashion post, you’ll see that the waist has dropped and the shape has evolved from the vertical line to what will eventually become in the 1830s two nearly equal triangles at top and bottom. For the 1820s, though, both skirts and puffy sleeves are still moderate.

Regarding the ball dress description: According to Cunnington’s English Women’s Clothing in the Nineteenth Century, bouillon is “a puffed-out applied trimming.” Crèpe lisse is an uncrimped silk gauze.

This red and white dress at the Met Museum will give you a better idea of what this sort of trim—and this shape of skirt—looked like in real life.

Promenade Dress Description

Ball Dress March 1825

Ball Dress Description

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Fashions for September 1862

Seaside costume September 1862

Loretta reports:

Author Donna Hatch, whom I finally met in London, recently shared a post on crinolines, which I in turn shared on Facebook. You may want to look at this piece while you peruse this month’s fashions. You’ll note that this dress, from the Met Museum’s collection, which appears in the article, bears a resemblance to the image from Plate 2 of the magazine.

Description of Plates

SECOND PLATE.—First Toilette. Dress of white coutil embroidered in black. The embroidery in this style of dress always affects the Greek style of ornament, is always based on a line and placed close to the hem. The Zouave jacket is much rounded, and embroidered in accordance with the skirt. Sleeves half-large, rounded, and open to the elbow. The chemisette and under-sleeves in strict accordance, even so far, that the wristbands and collar band are equally flat, plain, and close. Red cravat. A full sash of black lace, knotted behind, takes off from the perhaps too nautical appearance of this dress. The hat is in capital accordance with the entire dress; it is of leghorn straw, flat brim, band and edging of black velvet, ends of black lace, and black feathers. The chemisette must be very full to give due effect to the jacket.

Second Toilette. Inasmuch as England sets France the fashion in men's apparel, we need barely refer to this toilette, but we may say it is peculiar from this fact, that not only is all the suit made of one material, but the hat also is en suite. The cravat is in bad taste, but the harmony of the suit and gloves is admirable.

FOURTH PLATE.—First Toilette. Dress of white muslin, trimmed with black lace insertion. The skirt is trimmed with a flounce, and there is novelty in the application of a band of insertion lace, put above the hem of the flounce, which is headed with a fine puffing, over which is placed two narrow insertions, forming three narrow plaits. Bodice low; the berthe being in accord with the petticoat; small puffed sleeve, and each in perfect keeping with the dress; the ends very wide— a still prevalent mode.


Second Toilette. Dress of drab gauze, trimmed with blue taffetas. The undulating flounces are unusual, and made more so by the edge-plaiting, while almost perfect novelty is obtained by the vertical ribbons continued under the lower flounce. The bodice open. The bodice is in exquisite agreement with the skirt. —Les Modes Parisiennes September 1862

September 1862 fashions

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Fashions for August 1852

August 1852 fashions

August 1852 fashion description

Loretta reports:

Last year, in my 1850s fashion post, I lamented the dearth of complete magazines, with fashion plates, online for the Victorian era. It seemed that Godey’s was about all there was, with one or two Petersons. Since then, I’ve found a nice collection of the London and Paris Ladies’ Magazine of Fashion on Google Books. The magazine is rich in fashion prints. For August 1852,  I chose Plate 1 because it shows a court dress, which tends to be quite a different fashion species from other clothing, even evening dress. While the plumes tend to give it away, court dress also stands out in prints like these because it’s so elaborate.  This one is clearly so, dripping with jewels.

Plissé refers to fabric with a pleated or puckered finish. Interestingly, the Merriam- Webster dictionary lists a “first known use” of the term in 1859,” yet here it is in 1852. I’ve had this same experience many times, finding earlier usages in 19th century books online than the OED or M-W list.

Barège is a thin fabric made of silk and cotton or wool.

To compare and contrast actual dresses with prints, you might want to look at some early 1850s fashions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s online costume collection here, here, and here.

Images from The London and Paris Ladies' Magazine of Fashion, ed. by Mrs. Edward Thomas, via Google Books.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Friday Video: Behind the Scenes at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Susan reporting,

Consider this both a Friday Video, and a super-duper Breakfast Links.

Recently Google launched a new project through their Arts & Culture program. Called "We Wear Culture: The Stories Behind What We Wear" - the landing-page link is here - the program features scores of links to videos, articles, and on-line exhibitions that highlight fashion, material culture, and clothing, both past and present. Links will lead to museums, collections, and institutions from all over the world, and cover everything from modern fashion trendsetters to the most ancient of textile crafts. There is so much to explore - be prepared to spend some time!

The video, above, is a taste of what you'll find. This is a short behind-the-scenes look at the Conservation Laboratory of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, and features several garments that presented special challenges. A hint for viewing this video (and it took me a few tries to figure this out!): use the navigation tool in the upper corner to go right and reach each new segment. I remember seeing the Worth gown on display as part of last year's "Masterpieces" exhibition, and the solution to the gown's issues was wonderfully unobtrusive, and a sympathetic way to present a still-beautiful, if damaged, garment.

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Fashions for March 1822

Walking Dress February 1822

Loretta reports:

With last month’s fashion plates, I mentioned the style change that began after Waterloo. Dresses became more structured, less drapery-like.

One of the things we start seeing is a stiffening of the hem, using wadding, flounces, etc. These two dresses demonstrate the change. If you compare the opera dress of 1813 and the evening dress of 1822, the difference is clear.

I would remind readers, though, that the dresses themselves were not as stiff and geometric-looking in real life as in the fashion plates.  Susan offered us a good example back in December.

Evening Dress February 1822

Here are some  examples of 1820-25 dresses from the Metropolitan Museum of Art:
A wedding dress

A morning dress

An evening dress

1822 Dress description

 



Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

A Dinner Dress for the Holidays, c1824-26

Susan reporting,

I recently visited the Masterworks: Unpacking Fashion exhibition currently on display in the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They're not kidding about that title, either: every garment truly is a masterwork, and in exquisite condition. It's an amazing exhibition, and if you're fortunate enough to be in New York, it's definitely worth a trip to the Met.

With the Christmas holidays just around the corner, this dress from the exhibition seems particularly appropriate to share. This dress is simply fun, and it made everyone who came around the gallery corner smile.

It's also wonderful to see a dress like this in person. As Loretta has pointed out in other blogs featuring fashion plates from this era (here, here, and here), imagining exactly how the elaborate trimmings must have looked isn't easy. The detailed embellishments of this dress - poufs, red silk stuffed cording, and polychrome wool embroidery - add wonderful color and dimension to an otherwise plain white dress. (Loretta and I also marveled at how the wearer managed to keep a snow-white dinner dress so perfectly clean, without a single spot of gravy or spilled claret-cup - though that may be revealing more about us at Christmas parties than the unknown wearer.)

The museum's information is worth repeating here:

"Fashionable British dress from the early decades of the nineteenth century reveals a fascination with historical styles. Drawing inspiration from literature, theater costumes and history paintings of medieval and Renaissance subjects, dressmakers incorporated stylistic details from twelfth-through seventeenth-century dress into contemporary fashions. The decoratively slashed sleeves of the sixteenth century, through which linen undershirts were loosely drawn, inspired puffed trimmings such as the bouillons of fine white lawn that encircle the hem of this 1820s dress. Historicized elements such as these reflect a nostalgia for Britain's past, evoking romantic notions of the chivalry or patriotism of earlier eras. The wool crewel-embroidered holly boughs at the hem indicate that the dress was worn in winter, when the plant's berries and foliage provided welcome color and featured prominently in Christmas decorations."

When I shared this dress on Instagram, readers wondered how the wearer could have kept warm, wearing a short-sleeved cotton dress in December in houses without central heating. The answer: a luxurious cashmere shawl (see here and here.)

Above: Dinner Dress, maker unknown, British, 1824-26. White cotton lawn embroidered with holly motifs in red and green wool, trimmed with red silk taffeta. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photographs ©2016 Susan Holloway Scott.

From the Archives: A Gold Box for Rouge & Patches, 1783

Isabella reporting:

An 18th c. French lady could take literally hours dressing for an important ball. Just like modern celebrities preparing for the red carpet, a Parisian court beauty required a team of experts to dress and powder her hair, apply her make-up and patches, fasten jewels around her throat and wrists, lace her into her stays, and pin and her into her gown.

But even this carefully crafted magnificence might need a touch-up or two in the course of the evening, and a lady had to be prepared. This little gold box, left, contained a looking glass, a tiny brush, rouge, patches - those black velvet faux beauty marks so well-loved in the 17th-18th centuries.

Just as fashionable artifice reached new heights in the 18th c., so, too, did the craftsmanship that produced this box. This is the work of a master goldsmith: precisely cut and meticulously soldered, with inset hinges and perfectly fitted panels as well as separate compartments for the rouge and patches. The surfaces of the box are beautifully decorated as well in contrasting yellow and white gold. All of this is done on a miniature scale: the box measures only 2-1/8" x 1-1/2" x 5/8".

It's easy to imagine a lady using such a piece for artful flirtation, gracefully opening the little box and fluffing the brush over her cheeks, and, perhaps, coyly using its gleaming reflection to check the interest of the gentleman sitting behind her....

Above left: Box for Rouge and Patches, French (Paris), 1783-84, Varicolored gold. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Kate Read Blacque. Photos copyright Susan Holloway Scott.
Lower right: Les Adieux, engraving, Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune, 1777.

A Beautiful Bed with (Perhaps) a Political Agenda, c.1805

Isabella reporting,

Loretta has shared many examples (such as these here and here) of furnishings from the pages of Ackermann's Repository, showing what was "on trend" for fashionable homes in early 19thc Great Britain.

I was reminded of those illustrations when I recently spotted the bed, left, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. With its swooping curves, gleaming mahogany, ebony, and rosewood, brass inlay, and elaborate (reproduction) hangings, the bed could have been straight from the pages of Ackermann's. There's one difference, however. It wasn't made in London, but in New York.

According to the bed's placard:

"Following the Revolution, Americans took inspiration from the ancient empires of Greece and Rome in the establishment of a democratic republic. In turn, domestic interiors and furnishings began to resemble architecture and artifacts from classical antiquity. This bed's sweeping frame echoes the form of a Roman lectus (daybed) and the bronze plaque at the base bears the profile of a Roman magistrate or military officer."

In other words, this bed wasn't just a stylish piece of furniture: it was making a patriotic statement. Eagles and stars appear throughout American design of the period, and combined with the ancient Roman design, this bed was a thorough expression of Federalist sensibilities.

Or perhaps not. Although it was made in New York, the maker was a Frenchman, Charles-Honoré Lannuier. One of the city's foremost furniture makers, Lannuier employed his Parisian cousin, Jean-Charles Cochois, around the time this bed was made. Cochois would have brought with him the latest in Parisian designs inspired by the newly-created French Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon, too, wanted to create a new country with all the trappings of ancient Rome, but of a Roman empire rather than a Roman republic. So are the aggressive eagles on this bed republican American eagles, or imperial French ones?

One more thought: to the early 19thc customer commissioning this bed, the political and bellicose overtones of its design would have been a selling point. Today's consumers, however, prefer their beds to be a bit less menacing. While this style of classically-inspired bed - without the eagles and inlay - is once again very popular, savvy modern manufacturers call them sleigh beds - conjuring up cozy images of fresh snow, warm blankets, and sleigh bells instead of stern Roman military officers plotting their next conquest.

Above: Bedstead, by Charles-Honoré Lannuier and Jean-Charles Cochois, c.1805-8. Metropolitan Museum of Art. 
Photographs ©2016 Susan Holloway Scott.

Embroidery for a Man's Suit that Was Never Made Up, c1780

Isabella reported,

Last month I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Antonio Ratti Textile Center and Reference Library to study examples of 18thc embroidery (see my first post here), including this fascinating example. As always, please click on the images to enlarge them.

This piece is really several pieces, or panels, featuring the embroidered elements for a man's suit that was never completed. Elaborate embroidery was the height of male fashion in the 18thc, and skilled embroiderers executed designs in silk, sequins, and beading.

The embroidery was worked flat, with the fabric stretched taut on wooden frames. The embroidery pattern and the garment's outline were transferred to the fabric via pouncing - a light chalky powder pressed through tiny holes in the paper pattern - and then the lines were reinforced with ink on the fabric. These lines were meant to be covered by the embroidery, although some do still peek through if you look carefully.  The illustration from Diderot's Encyclopédie, upper right, shows two embroiderers at work on a coat.

These panels are embroidered in silk thread, with accents of netting, on a purple silk cloth. The larger panel, left, includes not only the embroidery for accenting the front of the coat, but also the pocket flaps, upper left, and buttons, bottom left. The second panel, lower right, has the collar and cuffs as well as the knee tabs for the matching breeches. (To better understand how all these puzzle-pieces were meant to be assembled, see this similar suit, also in the Met's collection.) The pieces that are basted together in the second panel may indicate that different embroiderers were working on the same project.

In most cases, the completed embroidered panels would have next gone to a tailor to be made up into a suit. The embroidery could have been ordered to the tastes of a specific customer, or done on speculation. Either way, it would have been the tailor's responsibility to assemble the embroidery to fit his customer's body.

These panels were never made into finished garments, and the reasons why are now forgotten. They're rare survivors of the historic fashion trades, and wonderful to study as they are. But being a fiction writer, however, I kept wondering why the suit was never made. Were the colors of the silk flowers not to a customer's tastes? Was the embroidery more expensive than he expected, and never claimed? Or was the embroidery somehow "so last year," and out of fashion before it could be finished?

Many thanks to Melinda Watt, Associate Curator, European Sculpture & Decorate Arts, and Supervising Curator, Antonio Ratti Textile Center, and the staff of the Antonio Ratti Textile Center for their assistance, knowledge, and patience - as you can tell, I had a wonderful Nerdy-History-Girl time!

Above: Embroidered panels for a man's suit, French, c1780, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photographs ©2016 by Susan Holloway Scott.

A Close Encounter with Silk Embroidery for an 18thc Gentleman's Suit

Susan reporting,

One of my favorite textile/costume exhibitions was last summer's Elaborate Embroidery: Fabrics for Menswear before 1815 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (you can read my post about it here.)

But as wonderful as the exhibition was, I longed to see the richly embroidered samples more closely than the display cases permitted. Last week, I finally returned to the Met for a research appointment at the Antonio Ratti Textile Center and Reference Library - the keepers of all those embroidery samples and much, much more besides.

The sample here (click on the images to enlarge) was one of the ones that I requested to view. It's not large: 12-1/2" x 7-3/4". The black fabric is faintly dotted silk velvet, and the embroidery threads are silk and metallic. There are also dozens of tiny sequins as well as paste jewels worked into the design. It might have been a sample of an embroidery pattern that was shown to gentlemen considering new suits, or it could also have been a experiment with a new pattern. The sample eventually became part of the textile design archives of The United Piece Dye Works, who gave the collection to the museum in 1936.

This sample was stitched in France around 1800-1815, long past the time when Louis XVI's court and their legendary excess had been displaced by the Revolution. But Napoleon Bonaparte liked those same sartorial trappings as much as his royal predecessors had, and gentlemen appearing at the imperial court were expected to appear in suits of luxurious fabrics embellished with embroidery like this. Of course, this kind of elaborate formal dress had never stopped being worn at the English court and others like it across Europe, but these suits were to be the last gasp of the glittering male peacock. Within a generation, formal wear for gentleman became dark and subdued, and has remained so to the present day.

Worked in shades of silver with gold accents on that inky velvet, a suit enhanced with the design in this sample would have sparkled and gleamed in an elegant, refined show of wealth and taste. Equipped with a magnifying glass, I was able to see the exquisite delicacy of the stitches, and the extremely fine silk and metallic threads used to create them, threads that would likely be impossible to find today.

I was especially interested in the tiny sequins, held in place by even smaller beads. The sequins that were stitched directly onto the velvet had tarnished over time, probably from a dye in the velvet, giving them an unintentional ombre effect. The small paste (glass) "jewels" near the edge were secured in in metal collars, which in turn were hidden by a loop of wrapped metallic thread. These details are visible where some of the loops has slipped away from the jewel.

I also loved being able to see the back side of the embroidery. Without the pile of the velvet and the glitter of the sequins and jewels, the design becomes more linear with the transition stitches criss-crossing over the flowers and leaves. In a way, it's equally beautiful, like the finest of silk spiderwebs.

Most of all, seeing this sample in such detail left me in awe of those now-forgotten designers, embroiderers, thread-spinners, sequin-and paste-jewel makers, velvet-weavers, and needle-makers who would have each contributed to its creation, and the skill, artistry, and accomplishment that this small bit of two-hundred-year-old fabric represents.

Many thanks to Melinda Watt, Associate Curator, European Sculpture & Decorate Arts, and Supervising Curator, Antonio Ratti Textile Center, and the staff of the Antonio Ratti Textile Center for their assistance, knowledge, and patience - as you can tell, I had a wonderful Nerdy-History-Girl time!

Above: Embroidery sample for a man's suit, French, 1800-1815, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Photographs ©2016 by Susan Holloway Scott.

Portraits that Stayed Fashionable, c1775

Isabella reporting,

When I saw this portrait, above left, last month at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I was puzzled by the lady's hair. Here on the blog, we're no strangers to 18thc Big Hair (see here and here), but the exaggerated styles don't come into fashion until the mid-1770s, and this woman's dress with the wealth of bows is firmly around 1760, which is where the museum places it, too.

So how did she manage to be so fashion-forward for her portrait? Turns out it's a case of 18thc celebrity Photoshop. Marie Rinteau and her sister Geneviève were celebrated beauties who, according the museum's notes, converted fleeting musical careers into the more profitable ones as "cultured courtesans known as les demoiselles de Verrières." Marie was the mistress of soldier and courtier Maurice de Saxe, and bore him an illegitimate daughter, Marie Aurore.

In 1761, the two sisters had their portraits painted by François Hubert Drouais (1727-1775), an artist who specialized in beautiful portraits of beautiful women; among his sitters was Louis XV's mistress Madame du Pompadour. The sisters were painted in rich settings, wearing lavish silk gowns with costly lace. To indicate their musical talents, Marie is holding sheet music, while Geneviève is shown gracefully playing her harp. They were also originally painted with the hairstyles of 1760, which were tightly curled and close to the head, much like another lady that Drouais painted around the same time, below left.

Fifteen years later, however, the demoiselles decided that their portraits needed to be updated. Either Drouais or another artist added the latest hairstyles sweeping upwards from their foreheads and decorated with plumes and festoons of silk flowers and faux pearls. Yet like the infamous portrait of Dorian Grey, their painted faces remained unlined and youthful.

Marie died in 1775, aged around forty-five. Perhaps this refurbishing was a final small vanity before her death, or perhaps it was her way of stalling the inevitable in a "career" that would have become increasingly difficult to maintain as the years passed. Either way, I'm sure she'd be pleased that her portrait is now admired by hundreds of visitors a day in one of the greatest museums in the world - and her hair is perfect.

Extra: One of our friends of the blog, art historian Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, recently published an article about other 18thc portraits that were altered to update them. You can read it here in the magazine of the Huntingdon Library; search for Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow to go directly to the article in the issue's pdf.

Above left: Detail, Marie Rinteau, called Mademoiselle de Verrières, by François Hubert Drouais, 1761, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Right: Geneviève Rinteau de Verrières by François Hubert Drouais, 1761, private collection.
 Bottom left: Detail, Countess Darya Petrovna Saltykova, by François Hubert Drouais, c1760.