Woman’s Dress (Robe à la française)1740-1760

Not on view

Full-length silk robe à la française, back view, pale silver-sage ground with allover chinoiserie motifs in pastel tones, wide panniers, Watteau pleats, and ruffled elbow cuffs

18th-century silk robe à la française displayed on a mannequin, rear view, with characteristic back pleats and wide panniers; cream ground woven with multicolored chinoiserie figures, pagodas, florals, and foliage; ruffled elbow-length sleeves.

Detail of woven silk brocade in pale ivory, with multicolored figured scene depicting seated figures beneath a pagoda-style canopy, surrounded by stylized foliage in green, blue, gold, and terracotta; gathered seam visible at left.

Silk brocade textile with sage green ground, woven with figures of animals, a pagoda-style structure, and foliate motifs in red, brown, gold, and blue.

Woven silk textile with cream ground, depicting a chinoiserie scene: a seated figure in rust-red robes beneath a fringed parasol with pendant bells, surrounded by exotic foliage, flowering plants, and a pavilion in blue and grey tones.

Woven silk textile in cream ground with a chinoiserie pattern; figures in wide-brimmed hats, a pagoda tower, a phoenix-like bird, a raised pavilion, and animals amid dense foliage in muted greens, blues, red, gold, and brown.

Woven silk textile with a cream ground, depicting a stylized bird rendered in deep red and olive green thread, surrounded by flowering plants and foliage in blue, green, and gold.

Silk brocade textile with cream ground, woven in polychrome threads depicting a chinoiserie scene: a seated figure in a conical hat rendered in blue-green above a large exotic bird in red and gold, surrounded by flowering plants in yellow and green.

Title: Woman’s Dress (Robe à la française)
Place Made: Netherlands, Amsterdam
Date Made: 1740-1760
Medium: Silk satin with self weft float patterning and silk and metallic-thread supplementary weft float patterning
Dimensions: Center back length: 63 in. (160.02 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by Suzanne A. Saperstein and Michael and Ellen Michelson, with additional funding from the Costume Council, the Edgerton Foundation, Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer, Maureen H. Shapiro, Grace Tsao, and Lenore and Richard Wayne
Accession Number: M.2007.211.928
Classification: Costumes
Collecting Area: Costume and Textiles
Curatorial Notes: Repeating patterns of fanciful vignettes depicting whimsical human figures, fantastic architectural structures, and out-of-scale flora and fauna appear on this figured silk. Typical of eighteenth-century chinoiserie designs (styles of European decorative art that imitated the conventions of Chinese artistic traditions), this textile illustrates how Westerners imagined the exotic Far East. The design, fabric structure, and 30½-inch selvage-to-selvage width are consistent with textiles produced in Amsterdam during the first half of the eighteenth century.
Selected Bibliography: Takeda, Sharon Sadako and Kaye Durland Spilker. Fashioning Fashion: Deux Siècles de Mode Européenne, 1700-1915. Paris: Arts Décoratifs; Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: Delmonico Books-Prestel, 2013.
Takeda, Sharon Sadako and Kaye Durland Spilker. Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700-1915. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: Delmonico Books/Prestel, 2010.
Takeda, Sharon Sadako and Kaye Durland Spilker. Fashioning Fashion: Europäische Moden, 1700-1915. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: Prestel, 2012.
Colenbrander, Sjoukje. When Weaving Flourished: the Silk Industry in Amsterdam and Haarlem, 1585-1750. Amsterdam: Aronson, 2013.

Woman’s Dress (Robe à la française)1740-1760

Not on view

Title: Woman’s Dress (Robe à la française)
Place Made: Netherlands, Amsterdam
Date Made: 1740-1760
Medium: Silk satin with self weft float patterning and silk and metallic-thread supplementary weft float patterning
Dimensions: Center back length: 63 in. (160.02 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by Suzanne A. Saperstein and Michael and Ellen Michelson, with additional funding from the Costume Council, the Edgerton Foundation, Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer, Maureen H. Shapiro, Grace Tsao, and Lenore and Richard Wayne
Accession Number: M.2007.211.928
Classification: Costumes
Collecting Area: Costume and Textiles
Curatorial Notes: Repeating patterns of fanciful vignettes depicting whimsical human figures, fantastic architectural structures, and out-of-scale flora and fauna appear on this figured silk. Typical of eighteenth-century chinoiserie designs (styles of European decorative art that imitated the conventions of Chinese artistic traditions), this textile illustrates how Westerners imagined the exotic Far East. The design, fabric structure, and 30½-inch selvage-to-selvage width are consistent with textiles produced in Amsterdam during the first half of the eighteenth century.
Selected Bibliography: Takeda, Sharon Sadako and Kaye Durland Spilker. Fashioning Fashion: Deux Siècles de Mode Européenne, 1700-1915. Paris: Arts Décoratifs; Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: Delmonico Books-Prestel, 2013.
Takeda, Sharon Sadako and Kaye Durland Spilker. Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700-1915. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: Delmonico Books/Prestel, 2010.
Takeda, Sharon Sadako and Kaye Durland Spilker. Fashioning Fashion: Europäische Moden, 1700-1915. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: Prestel, 2012.
Colenbrander, Sjoukje. When Weaving Flourished: the Silk Industry in Amsterdam and Haarlem, 1585-1750. Amsterdam: Aronson, 2013.