Stomacher

This triangle-shaped textile is an accessory to a garment: a stomacher, designed to be worn as a central bodice piece with open robes of the eighteenth century. Represented as if growing up the lady’s torso in one elegant vine, a tulip, rose, iris, and an unidentified dahlia-like flower display gloriously lush crimson petals ornamented with copious, cleverly manipulated gilded thread, stitched and looped. The same care has been taken representing a variety of different foliage, with a more minimal matching pair of vines defining the outer struts of the stomacher. Across a ground of simple white linen, the whole is given startlingly effective decorative treatment by the meandering vermiculation of precious metal thread. The cumulative effect of this fashionable accessory is simple (if affluent) elegance.