Digital Collections

Petticoat

Object/Artifact

Entirely hand stitched white cotton petticoat of moderate fullness. The double-scalloped hem is worked all around over the two side-front seams; the back seam was made after the embroidery was completed; the continuity of the design there is excellent. A grape-vine design is worked in white cotton broderie anglaise with additional lines of buttonhole stitch and stem stitch. The design is enlarged and elaborated in a wide flaring section in the front panel, from the waist to the hem. Mounted on a cotton waistband with gauffering, less fullness in the front. One MOP button at the back opening. One seam has carefully butted selvages where the hem embroidery is worked; above there it becomes a standard seam with a running stitch that becomes slightly coarser as it rises. The other seam has one selvage butted against the other’s fold, turning into a standard overcast seam with increasingly coarser stitching toward the top. The back seam is carefully worked over the embroidery and coarser at the top- it is not entirely clear whether a panel was removed. The top of the skirt had a 2-inch strip of coarser cloth added but the skirt was reset to be shorter; remains of stitching on the edge suggest it originally had been inserted into the waistband.

G2008.062

Bruce and Susan Greene Costume Collection

1855 - 1865

petticoat

youth

hand stitched

cotton

scalloped hem

embroidered

broderie anglaise

recycled

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