Dress

Unknown

ca. 1835 · silk, cotton · Costume Institute

This is a dress from the early 1830s, the Romantic period, in which sleeves became quite large and women were said to look like butterflies. From the Whittemore family, an influential New Hampshire family in the nineteenth century, the dress is beautifully made. While the sleeves are large, they are in proportion to a child's form. Made of a fine fabric which is sheer and lightweight, great care was taken to add a cotton facing at the bottom of the hem to give it weight, allowing the dress to move gracefully.

Artist

Unknown

Date

ca. 1835

Medium

silk, cotton

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 William J. Whittemore, 1933