Dress, Polonaise dress

Polonaise; striped yellow ground with tobine warp and patterned weft of trailing white and grey flowers; main design of multicoloured floral sprays, brocaded, with brocaded brown trim to white flowers. Silk probably English. Linen lining to bodice and sleeves; lower edge of skirt with 305 mm cream silk lining to hem. Back cut with fitted pleats 'en fourreau', bodice fastening centre front with covered buttons on false front with yellow silk falls behind. Original ribbon robings, with small floss silk flowers at neck and edges of bodice. Mid length sleeves trimmed with double flounce, angled cuffs, using white selvedge as gathered edge, and raw scalloped outer edge. Open skirt of five full widths of material, with 200 mm pocket openings in side seams just below waist. Raw edged hem of skirt and lining turned in between and stitched through. Two covered buttons at right side back waist with two yellow cords on wrong side, for looping up skirt as polonaise. These may be slightly later alterations to an original 1760s dress, contemporary with size and adjustments below. Very slightly trained. c1770s(?) the pleats of the fitted back have been widened to give increased width to the back and a corresponding insertion put into the lining. Front darts to bodice unpicked. Narrow dirty lace at neck, possibly added in 19th c. with heavy coloured lace below, probably earlier. c1980s Addition of heavy yellow braid trim and black machine lace cuffs and two small darts at front of bodice.
Catalogue note by Natalie Rothstein. Yellow cannellé ground on which is a white flowering stem with a detached bunch of flowers in the curves formed by the meandering stem. The pattern has a drop reverse repeat. The cannellé of the ground forms an elaborate chevron pattern. There is one white pattern weft bound in 3\1 twill, the brocaded colours are unbound. These are shot every fourth shoot of the ground weft but are so thick that they still cover the ground well. Continued
Bodice front appears to be in ‘zone’ style of early 1790s; the ribbon trim is not the original robing, the original robing still exists in situ but is sewn down; position of pocket slits towards back indicates the skirt was re-pleated and re-sewn; sleeve seams have been re-sewn; bodice side seams have been let out; bodice centre fronts appear to have originally been a compere stomacher front; crudeness of buttons on bodice back suggests they are later additions; this dress appears to have been first made in 1750s, remade in 1780s-early 90s, then altered for fit in the 19th century – some of which was subsequently undone.