Description
A renaissance-style bodice of purple silk moiré and blue-black silk velvet. The tightly fitted bodice extends to deep points in the center front and center back, with a stand velvet collar . There are 21 velvet-covered buttons and handmade buttonholes for the front closure.
The bodice proper left side front is trimmed with self vertical tucks, the outermost one ending in a jabot-like fall. The bodice proper right side front is trimmed with an elongated triangle of moiré-piped velvet.
Each side front is trimmed with an applied stylized long-stemmed French jet bead flower.
The velvet sleeves are slashed at shoulder and elbow, with the moiré lining pulled through. Three more French jet flowers have been applied to the center back and adjacent side seams.
It is lined in light brown cotton woven with a red and blue windowpane check and white shuttlecock pattern. It is stiffened with 9 bones along the seams.
Dress shields inside are stamped “Canfield/2/Extra Fine/Trademark/Feb 1, 1876/June 18, 1878” and have been added to the armscyes, and there is a fabric-covered weight sewn into the center back just above the bottom edge.
Dimensions
Condition
The bodice is in very good condition.
Comments
The bodice would probably have had a skirt of matching moiré and velvet, now lost.
The historicism of the Renaissance-inspired sleeves and style of the beaded flowers suggests a connection to the Aesthetic Movement but the bodice is too tightly fitted and heavily boned to have been Aesthetic dress.
Instead, the ensemble may have been made as fancy dress, to be worn to one of the masquerade parties that were extremely popular at the very end of the 19th century.