Dinner dress
Design House House of Worth French
Designer Charles Frederick Worth French, born England
Not on view
Autumn leaves decorate a silk dress the bronzed color of the season and its leaves. Never melancholy in their majesty, the leaves remind us of Homer's phrase: "like leaves on trees the race of man is found, Now green in youth, now withering on the ground: another race the following spring supplies; they fall successive, and successive rise." The dress is likewise an allegory cognizant of the season and of a cycle of life and death.
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