19th-Century Handmade Dresses
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GUEST:
So, these dresses were my great-great-aunt's dresses, and they have been passed down to all the women of the family. I know that my great-great-aunt and her sister made these dresses, and I was told that it was somewhere in the mid-1800s, even in the maybe 1880s-ish, is what had been passed down to me.
APPRAISER:
First of all, I'm going to talk about this, the blue piece.
GUEST:
Okay, awesome.
APPRAISER:
It's cotton. It is probably cotton from England. It's a block print. The blue is just stunning. It's from the late 1830s.
GUEST:
Oh, okay.
APPRAISER:
So it's much earlier than you think it is.
GUEST:
That's awesome.
APPRAISER:
It's two-piece, it's the late 1830s. We know this because earlier, there would have been kind of very large, voluminous sleeves. And then as the decade progresses, very early 1840s, the sleeve starts to drop. And we have all of this hand-gathering on the edge here, which is just stunning. It's all done, both of these are done by hand with no labels. And it's in really lovely condition. The print is reminiscent of an Indian, an earlier Indian print, and it's these wonderful paisleys and exotics of Indian floral motifs. At auction, we believe that this would probably sell for between $1,500 and $2,200.
GUEST:
Wow!
APPRAISER:
The blue is just... it zaps you, doesn't it?
GUEST:
Yeah, it's beautiful.
APPRAISER:
The second piece you brought in is later, it's more mid-century. Okay. And it's made of wool challis, which is a really fine, fine soft wool. It's printed, and it has some condition issues. All of these buttons that are metal would have been covered in a...
GUEST:
Oh...
APPRAISER:
You see little remnants of the purple there, so imagine all these stunning purple plum covered buttons to pick up the purple in the stripe here. Wool moths love wool, and there are condition issues all around here that are going to affect the value as well. And it's significant when you start to have holes that obvious. So, the market for this is very different. At auction, it would probably sell for about $300.
GUEST:
Okay.
Appraisal Details
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