Dinner dress

Mon. Vignon

1875–78 · silk, glass · Costume Institute

Uncannily like the dresses in the wonderfully presumptuous portraits of John Singer Sargent and Thomas Eakins of the same time, this 1870s evening dress extracts the full glitz and glamour of eighteenth-century fashion for a new epoch. Ornament crowds out other ornament; the configuration of the open robe is renewed; its silhouette is bold and begins to connect the eighteenth century with its Belle Époque revival.

Artist

Mon. Vignon

Date

1875–78

Medium

silk, glass

Culture

French

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Gift of Mary Pierrepont Beckwith, 1969