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Description
Burgundy and black silk brocade day dress, with evidence of re-styling in the 19th century. Belonged to Harriet Rogers Burnett, wife of California's first American governor, Peter Hardemann Burnett, and reportedly was worn by her in San Jose to her husband's Inauguration Ball, December 20, 1849. The dress is styled circa 1865, with a dart-fitted bodice with jewel neckline and round waist, long sleeves with 4- to 6-inch long elbow flounces over a fitted self-fabric undersleeve, skirt that is flat at the front and gauged at the back waistline, and features two self-fabric flounces above the hem. The dress is trimmed with 1/2 inch wide black thread lace in a "yoke" effect on the bodice, at the hem of the undersleeve and the top of the sleeve flounce, and buttons down the center front with dark red fabric-covered shank buttons with a raised star motif. The sleeve flounce and skirt flounces are topped and edged with plain black bias tape (possibly made of silk). The skirt opens with a dogleg closure across the front waistline and down the right hip, currently fastened by small metal snaps and one black metal hook and eye. The hem of the skirt (under the lower flounce) features fabric piecing at one seam, and the skirt is lined with pink silk taffeta from knee-level to the hem. Evidence from old seam lines and a combination of machine and hand-stitching on the inside of the bodice, as well as fabric hidden in the skirt-to-bodice seam, indicates that the dress originally had a fuller, single or un-flounced skirt that was gauged to the bottom of the bodice around the back and sides, with a slightly smaller bodice waist measurement and a pointed front waistline, with sleeves that were narrow, fitted to the arm; this would put this dress within the style norm for 1848-9. The skirt and sleeve flounces also have interesting seam lines which suggest that they were cut from one of the skirt panels when the dress was remodeled to the trimmer silhouette of 1863-6.
Type
image
Identifier
BFBE8459-E26D-4788-9B79-831526013840 2012-75-1
Subject
Fashion (LCSH) Dresses Women Nineteenth century (LCSH) Burnett, Peter Hardeman Burnett, Harriet Rogers
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