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Left: A
subtle leopard pattern is integrated into the floral silk
brocade of this court dress. Jean-Marc Nattier’s portrait of
Madame de Maison-Rouge as Diana (1756) portrays her with an
exotic leopard skin wrapped over one shoulder à l’Amazone.
Right: The French taste for expensive, heavily-patterned silks gave way in the late 18th century to an interest in simpler, finely woven cottons. The best of these, known as “Indiennes,” were imported from India, where poets such as Sufi Amir Khurso had rhapsodically compared their fineness to smoke, vapour, clouds, and water. This shawl features a Western interpretation of the boteh, an extremely sylized floral motif used in decorative patterning along the borders of shawls from Kashmir. Weavers in Paisley, Scotland, adapted and re-imagined the boteh in countless variations, and thus created the popular patterns that came to be known as “paisleys.” 
November 27, 2007 -
May 7, 2008
Left: Robe à la
française, ivory silk brocade with lace and passementerie,
c.1755, France, P82.27.1, museum purchase
Right: Dress, white cotton, c.1812, USA, P89.40.6, museum purchase / Shawl, multicolor wool, 1815-1840, probably Scotland, P86.71.1, museum purchase, photograph by Irving Solero
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