English Afternoon Dress – Autumn 1800

Two seated women in afternoon dress for November 1800. The woman on the left wears a white head wrap or cap with green laurel wreath. She wears a triple stranded gold bead necklace and matching gold earrings. Her dress has a wide white standing ruffled collar on a V-shaped neckline. The top of her dress crosses over and is fastened with two gold buttons, and she wears a narrow light blue ribbon at the waist. Her sleeves are cuffed at the elbow and have four blue knots of ribbon, or buttons, down the sides.

Her dress is floor-length and she wears a narrow gold bracelet on her right wrist and long white gloves. She sits on a gold chair with a pink cushion. The woman on the right sits at an angle with her back towards the viewer. She wears a gold ornament with a pink and white feather on her head and a double-strand pink bead necklace and matching earrings. She has a white ruffled collar and white elbow length sleeves. The top of the sleeves are puffed and the bottom half is decorated with three narrow white ruffles.

She wears white gloves up to the hem of her sleeves. A pink ribbon belts her dress at its empire waist. She sits on a wooden stool covered in pink cloth with gold fringe, in a room with a rug patterned with green diamonds, with large pink roses inside each diamond. The women appear to be in animated conversation.

Credit: The Claremont Colleges