Images(4)

Disassembled Gown

Date1785-1795

OriginEngland (textile); worn in America, Virginia, Surry County

MediumSilk, Linen

DimensionsCF: 11 inches long, CB: 56 inches long, Bust: 36 inches, Waist: 28.5 inches

Credit LineGift of Jackie Harrison Mason

Object number2019-61,A-O

DescriptionSilk English fitted back gown that has been cut in half and one half fully disassembled. The fabric is made of green, pink, and red brocaded flowers on a cream colored ground with variegated satin stripes. It was probably manufactured in Spitalfields, England. The gown is cut with a center front closure and a fitted back in the English style. The skirts are finely pleated into the waist of the gown bodice and have two pocket slits that have been closed. Scars along the center front of the gown and the selvage edge turned to the exterior that runs down center front suggests that the gown probably had some sort of trim on it, but is now missing. The skirt has two triangular-shaped gore panels, one on the intact half of the dress and the other separated. Gores are commonly seen in sack construction, but the gore panels in this dress are inverted from those seen on sack gowns. Additionally, pleat marks would be present if the gown had originally been a sack, these are not present. Shaped gores are highly unusualThe hem of the gown is faced in a very fine light silk taffeta. Brocaded silk width: 19 ¼” selvedge-to-selvedge.
MarkingsThe gown has numerous pen and blue/purple marker marks to denote seaming points.
ProvenanceThe gown descended through the Harrison/Byrd family of Virginia. Oral history claimed that the dress was worn by Evelyn Byrd (1707 -1737) when she was presented at the Court of George I (1714-1727). The style of the dress does not match with the dates of Evelyn Byrd, however the gown may have been confused with Evelyn Taylor Byrd. Evelyn Taylor Byrd was the daughter of Col. William Evelyn Byrd III and Mary Shippen Byrd (Willing) of Westover Plantation in Charles City County, Virginia. She was born on October 13, 1766 at Westover and died October 12, 1817 at White Sulpher Springs in present day West Virginia. She married Colonel Benjamin Harrison of Brandon Plantation on January 29, 1788 in Surry County, Virginia. The style of the gown dates to the time of their marriage and perhaps was her wedding gown.

The gown has a long written and visual history. The Richmond Times Dispatch on July 3, 1904 noted the gown during an excursion to the plantation by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. The author wrote “The thing that attracted most attention outweighing the claims of protraits, was a satin evening gown, brocaded in pink buds and green leaves, cut with low pointed waist and angel wing sleeves falling away from the elbow that was worn by the lovely Evelyn Byrd at the last ball in Williamsburg to which she went. The glistening folds of the satin and its quaint fashioning seemed a most pathetic survival of the youthful grace and loveliness which it once enshrined, suggesting a vision of bright eyes now dimmed and of laughing lips that for more than a hundred years have forgotten how to smile. Gazing from the pictured lineaments above to the insensible fabric beneath, that took on new worth because of its association, one could but wonder at: The Common Fate of all things rate and lament over How small a part of time they share who are so wondrous sweet and fair.”

Frank and Cortelle Hutchins mention and picture the gown in their 1910 book Houseboating on a Colonial Waterway. The authors wrote while visiting Brandon “But instead, something quite different came out of the past, something very soft and feminine fell over the blocked old papers – the treasured silk brocade in which Evelyn Byrd was presented at the Court of George I. Like a shadowy passing of that famous colonial belle, was the sweep of the faint flowered gown. A fabric of the patch and powder days is this, with embroidered flowers in old blues and pinks clustered on its deep cream ground. Its fashioning quaint” the Watteau pleat in the back with tiny tucks each side at the slim waist line, the square low neck, the close elbow sleeves, the open front to display the quilted petticoat. Mingled feelings rise at sight of the soft brocade whose bodice once throbbed with the happy heartbeats of this Virginia maiden, making pretty curtsy in rosy pleasure, the admiration of the English Court. Perhaps in this very gown she danced the stately minute with young Charles Mordaunt, perhaps hid beneath its fluttering laces his first love sonnet. So, in those far Colonial days it knew the life of her. The grave of the young body seems still to linger in the pale, shimmering folds, and the clinging touch of the old court gown is like a timid appeal for remembrance.” The niece of Evelyn Taylor Byrd Harrison, Belle Harrison Mayo, is photographed wearing the gown at Brandon.

Donors also provided photos of Evelyn Byrd Harrison, daughter of George Evelyn III on the steps of Brandon wearing the gown in 1908 and Mary Beale Knowles, granddaughter of Evelyn Byrd wearing the gown in 1972.