Bustles First, Then Women Wearing Them

4-2-10

Museums Open For Season

By JIM KEVLIN : COOPERSTOWN

John Singer Sargent’s portraits of wealthy women of the Gilded Age feature elegant and ornamental gowns.
They abound in “Sargent: Portraits in Praise of Women,” opening Memorial Day Weekend, a centerpiece of The Fenimore Art Museum’s 2010 season.
But The Fenimore curators couldn’t wait.
“It seems like the two were made for each other,” said assistant curator Chris Rossi, wending her way amid the begowned mannequins in “Empire Waists, Bustles & Lace: A Century of New York Fashion,” selections from The Fenimore’s “huge collection” of historic clothing.
“Empire Waists,” along with four other exhibits, launched the Fenimore and Farmers’ museums’ season on April 1, in time for Easter weekend enjoyment.
“It wasn’t consciously decided that we would collect dresses,” said Paul D’Ambrosio, NYSHA vice president and the museums’ chief curator.
Over the decades, however, it became known that the museums on Otsego Lake’s shores were interested in quality items that captured 19th century life in the region, he said.
So material – furniture, ceramics and, yes, clothing –  discovered in attics after relatives died, found its
way to the historical institutions.
The way the collection developed means items “are not divorced from the original homestead they came from,” said Rossi.
One exhibit includes a wedding dress, a travelling dress and mourning garb from the same family, plus a quilt that features the same careful stitching.
This is The Fenimore’s first extensive clothing exhibit in years, and since the dresses – and men’s clothing, too –  are very fragile, preparing the exhibit was “very labor intensive,” D’Ambrosio said.
The other day, not only was Chris Rossi wielding a needle, so was Michelle Murdock, another assistant curator, who was firming up a Civil War era example.
“These are shapes not usually found in nature,” Rossi observed, straightening a dress on a form that accentuated the hips and minimize the waist.
Looking ahead to the Sargent opening Saturday, May 29, D’Ambrosio predicted visitors will find more than just a pretty dress:  The painter’s best portraits, new scholarship is concluding, captured the personality and character of the women sitting.
Wealthy women of the Gilded Age “used their homes as salons,” he said.  “Within their spheres of influences, they were able to be a progressive force in society.”
The 22 paintings will also include portraits of a young woman from Capri who arrested the painter’s interest.
Last year, “America’s Rome,” based on a definitive book published by William Vance, who taught D’Ambrosio at Boston University, was widely acclaimed and, thus, a tough act to follow.
But as Vance was at the front of his area of study, Patricia Hills, whose “John Singer Sargent” caused a rethinking of his reputation when it was published in 1986, has written an essay for the NYSHA program.