18th century cotton?

crinolinegirl

crinolinegirl

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I have a c. 1805- 1810 5 year old child's dress but the vegetable dye printed semi sheer cotton fabric just strikes me as being slightly older like very late 18th century. There is just something about it that is nagging me!!
What do you all think?
<img src="http://www.corsetsandcrinolines.com/fsimages/childrens/girlsregencydress1.jpg">
<img src="http://www.corsetsandcrinolines.com/fsimages/childrens/girlsregencydress2.jpg">
<img src="http://www.corsetsandcrinolines.com/fsimages/childrens/girlsregencydress3.jpg">

Lei
 
Here is a close up of the fabric:
<img src="http://www.corsetsandcrinolines.com/example/dressfabric.jpg">

Thanks for posting that list Paul. I didn't know that they had chemical dyes in the 18th century, thought those were a 19th century invention so the dyes may very well be chemical on my dress.
Not really sure how regular the print is though as I have a feeling it was remade from an adult dress so I don't know how "square" I will be able to get a regular pattern if you know what I mean??

Lei
 
Just remembered:-
Adam Hart Davis, did a TV program something like " What the Victorians did" but about the period before, he gave a date when yellow and gold dyes were first introduced into the UK.
Apparently it was all the fashion and every one had there interior fabrics done in these colours , I cannot remember the date but it was pre Queen may be around the Brighton Pavilion time!. I might be wrong on that still worth looking as he did a lot about colour and dyes. That will give a not before date.
The pattern ... yes my logic might be wrong unless you had loads of cloth to compare. A silly thought for me.
 
I thought it was more chemical mordants rather than dyes that they were experimenting with in the late 18th century because the traditional mordants were icky (urine) or not strong enough to guarantee colour fastness on cotton.

That is quite the humdinger of a pattern you got there! I would have sworn it was a late 19th century revival pattern rather than a true 18th century pattern. It looks more William Morris than the real stuff he was copying!
I am guessing here, but all the roller prints I have seen have been small scale prints, usually smaller flower buds with trellis backgrounds etc. I wonder if this isn't still a block print, and perhaps even an Indian block print. There was a stream of Indian cotton coming into the UK in the late 1790s and early 1800s because Napoleon had Egypt all to his own by then. It just seems too large scale for the period, more of a furnishing textile scale rather than a dress scale. You get big damasks and brocades in the early 18th century but by the end of the 18th century all the dress prints are usually quite small, not big and florid like that.

Whatever it is, its a great print and a wonderful dress. If it wasn't a child's dress I would be all over it.
 
OK looking at the book it comes close to something called a Indiennes - French interpretations of indian hand painted cotton - Late 18th early 19th. They used to import these patterns until it became so popular they banned it. So they copied them domestically. That only made the prints more popular.

I would also say it may be a block print but it looks too fluid to be that.

-Chris
 
I didn't think of that... yes, it might be French. If it is an Indian cotton then it would have to be block printed, but if it is of European manufacture imitating Indian cotton then it could be roller printed.
 
The book said the indian cotton was handpaineted as well... It was very interesting that it became lillegal to import The indian fabric. Because it made it more popular but people wore it privately to be risque..... In those day a Fredericks of Hollywood would have killed them outright.

-Chris
 
I think it is probably roller printed as the pattern is too regular and fluid to be block printed. The dress came from the West Midlands area but where it came before that is anyones guess! It may very well be French! In with that clothing group, I also got the velvet boy's outfit that Jake wore, an Edwardian sailor's outfit (which I'm keeping for Jake to wear this summer to the Edwardian day at the tram museum), a late 1850's child's dress and a turn of the century child's Turkish embroidered bolero which I will be posting pix of :)

When I first saw the print, I though this is what William Morris was doing but obviously this is the sort of thing he took his inspiration from 100 years later!

The size of the print is what is confusing me, I'm used to seeing small floral prints in Regency things which is why I though this dress may have been cut down from something bigger and earlier like a adult relatives's gown or from curtains/furnishings.
Shall I saw then that the fabric is 18th century but the dress made made during the beginning of the 1800's?

Lei
 
The size of the print must depend upon the diameter of the rollers so it might be posable to find a drawing on a roller printing machine for that period, maybe they got biggar as time gose by.
 
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