I have a special treat this month that I've been saving for almost a year. Last December, I was able to attend the astonishing exhibit Fashioned by Sargent at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The exhibit paired paintings by John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) with actual clothing of the period for comparison, including many of the actual items worn in the paintings. This was heaven for a costume person like me! The clothing and artwork were each astonishing individually. But being able to compare clothing side by side with Sargent's paintings of it made it obvious how much Sargent tweaked the look of things and how cautious one should be using paintings as a source to reconstruct costumes. I spent several hours in the exhibit just staring intently at everything. And to add dance historian rapture to costume rapture and art rapture, two of the costume/painting pairs were of fancy dress costumes!
I took extensive photos, but I am not the world's best photographer, nor is my camera all that special. And the lighting in the exhibit was kept low to protect the paintings and textiles, with lots of little sparkly indirect lights that twinkled oddly off the protective cases in which the costumes were displayed. All of this adds up to photos which are not the greatest quality, but which I hope will communicate the beauty of the garments and the excitement of comparing them to the original paintings. There are much better lit photos of some of the paintings and clothing on the exhibit website, a couple of which I have borrowed for this post.
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