Bonnet

Balch, Price & Company

ca. 1880 · straw, silk · Costume Institute

This example of a typical bonnet worn at the end of the 1870s would have been popular with youthful married women. Probably worn with a visiting ensemble, the hat features straw, velvet and picoté ribbon. The small size accented the wearer's coiffure: her hair would have been gathered into a decorative topknot with light fringe over the forehead. Balch Price and Company was a prominent Brooklyn retailer.

Artist

Balch, Price & Company

Date

ca. 1880

Medium

straw, silk

Culture

American

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. James McF. Baker, 1948