Tea at Trianon: Eighteenth Century Maternity Dress

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, February 27, 2017

Eighteenth Century Maternity Dress

A rare brocade pregnancy dress from the 1790's.

Pale green silk sprigged overall with ivory and peach trefoils tied with tassels, comprising: petticoat with waist ties and two matching bodices, one high fashion (for early pregnancy) in ‘pierrot’ style cut low and tight with closed front, faux waistcoat panels, short tails to the back lined in striped silk, narrow curved sleeves; the other in open-robe form with inner boned closed front panels and loose deshabillé-like outer panels, the neckline outlined in cartridge pleats, with three ribbon drawstrings to allow for expansion, lined in patches of tartan and striped silk; together with a fine white lawn fichu with whitework embroidered edges.

Kerry Taylor Auctions