Dress

American

Not on view

In the nineteenth century, the marked increase in the cultivation of varieties of roses coincided with the possibilities of accurate woven representations of botanicals. This dress from the middle years of the century uses a technically sophisticated representation of floral clusters. It is a chiné or warp-weave, challenging the impulse to naturalism with a technique prone to blurred image. Nonetheless, it is a triumph of simulation, including shading that gives the illusion of three-dimensionality to the flowers.

Dress, silk, cotton, American

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Group, Left to right: C.I.62.34, 1983.479.6a–d