Young Woman in a Patterned Dress (1860s): Art, History and Details

Young Woman in a Patterned Dress (1860s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Instead of expressing the sitter’s personality, the pose and composition are structured to draw attention to her prized possession: her best dress. The photographer employed a compositional formula and pose frequently chosen by photographers of that era to show off dresses made from fabric with complex, rhythmic geometric patterns.

Object facts

• Title: Young Woman in a Patterned Dress
• Date: 1860s
• Culture: America
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: daguerreotype with hand-applied color
• Dimensions: Image: 6.8 x 5.7 cm (2 11/16 x 2 1/4 in.); Case: 9.4 x 8.2 cm (3 11/16 x 3 1/4 in.)
• Collection: PH - American 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2024.16

A detail from the museum

Before the age of the snapshot, being photographed was a special occasion for which people dressed in their best clothing.

Collection credit

Gift of Nina Rosenblum and Lisa Rosenblum

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.