Gown
Category
Costume
Date
1770
Materials
Silk, paint and linen
Order this imageCollection
Killerton, Devon
NT 1363751
Caption
Quantities of Chinese silk were brought to the Mediterranean via the overland route through Central Asia – the Silk Roads – from the 2nd century BCE until the Portuguese began to explore the sea route to Asia around Africa in the 16th century. They were followed by Dutch and English merchants from 1600. The sumptuous Chinese silk they returned with was often decorated with woven or embroidered patterns. It was probably due to the strong European taste for Indian floral chintz that Chinese workshops began to produce printed and painted silks for the export market from the middle of the 18th century. In Europe these silks were used for furnishings and clothes, like this dress. Here, the black lines of the flowers and birds were block printed, while the colours were added by hand. The motifs are a mixture of Chinese designs and European Rococo and Neo-classical elements. The style is a ‘sack’ – a gown featuring wide box pleats at the back, perfect for flaunting the delicately painted flower posies, birds and butterflies. Emile de Bruijn
Summary
Dress - Sack gown, c. 1770, of Chinese silk printed and painted with flower posies, birds and butterflies on natural (off-white) ground. Square neckline, closed bodice lined with linen, open skirt and full sack back. Later addition of box-pleated robings (including across bodice front to give effect of stomacher) and falling fan cuffs, also cord loops to skirt for drawing up into polonaise, shape fashionable in the 1770s.
Full description
Chinese silk was already known by the ancient Romans. Quantities of silk were brought to the Mediterranean via the overland route through Central Asia, the so-called ‘Silk Road’. The earliest Chinese silks surviving in Europe today can be found in medieval cathedral treasuries, made into vestments and altar cloths. During the 16th century, the Portuguese explored the sea route to Asia around Africa, followed from around 1600 by Dutch and English merchants. The Chinese silk they returned with tended to be decorated with woven or embroidered patterns. Another Asian product that was very popular in 17th-century Europe was Indian chintz or printed and painted cotton. It was probably due to the strong European taste for floral chintz that Chinese workshops began to produce printed and painted silks for the Western market from the middle of the 18th century. The black lines were block-printed while the colours were added by hand. The decoration consisted of a mixture of Chinese motifs and European rococo and neoclassical elements. In Europe these silks were used for furnishings and clothes, like this dress at Killerton. It is a so-called ‘sack’, a gown featuring wide box pleats at the back, perfect for flaunting the delicately painted flower posies, birds and butterflies. Some of the Chinese silks in historical European collections that have been described as ‘painted’ may in fact also have printed elements. Another example of a Chinese silk with printed-and-painted floral decoration made into a chasuble (liturgical vestment), is in the collection of the church of Saint Lubin, in Le Boullay-Thierry, Eure-et-Loir, France (Cochet and Joly [eds.] 2008). During the 1740s and 1750s, wallpapers were being produced in China (probably in Suzhou and the surrounding region) for the Western market, on which the outlines of the decoration were applied through woodblock printing, with the colours subsequently painted in by hand (Bruijn 2017). It seems likely that there was an overlap and a degree of mutual influence between the artisans producing these wallpapers and those producing printed-and-painted silk for the West. Emile de Bruijn
Provenance
Donor - Stainton, Sheila (Miss). Former National Trust Housekeeper. Retired. Dress handed down through family.
References
Antrobus and Slocombe 2025: Helen Antrobus and Emma Slocombe, 100 Things to Wear: Fashion from the collections of the National Trust, National Trust 2025, pp. 80-81. Bruijn 2017: Emile de Bruijn, Chinese Wallpaper in Britain and Ireland, London, Philip Wilson in association with the National Trust, 2017, pp. 66-77. Cochet and Joly (eds.) 2008: Vincent Cochet and Anne-Marie Joly (eds.), Vestiaire sacré d’Eure-et-Loir: textiles brodés, textiles, brochés, Chartres 2008, cat. 39, pp. 67–9.