Wedding dress

Mme O'Donovan

1889 · silk · Costume Institute

In 1882, H. B. Ellwanger's book The Rose identified nearly a thousand varieties. However, nineteenthth-century Americans continued to love and cultivate rambling and climbing roses for their informal gardens, prizing their prolific flowering and freedom of growth. Thus, rambling roses in a twiggy pattern with their simpler, wilder bloom grow upward on this wedding dress, rather than cascading downward in the more customary pattern.

Artist

Mme O'Donovan

Date

1889

Medium

silk

Culture

American

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Gift of Louise M. Byrne, 1978