Court mantua

This dress with its wide extended petticoat (skirt) is known as a 'mantua'. During the 18th century this style of dress was worn to royal courts across Europe.

The white brocaded background of the fabric is typical of English woven silk and represents a high point in Spitalfields weaving. It is brocaded with colourful sprays of stylised flowers. The use of zigzag and other geometric motifs in the ground pattern, together with the stylised flowers in naturalistic colours, is characteristic of silks dating from the early 1750s.