Evening Dress Detail

In 1895, German immigrant Meyer Greentree (1856–1948) opened a specialty clothing store at 611 East Broad Street in downtown Richmond. The Greentree family owned and operated the store until 1971. Like Thalhimers, Greentree’s sold formal women’s clothing in a salon called the French Room. The Dionysian bands of ornamental grape clusters embellishing this Greentree’s evening dress create a striking effect that calls to mind both virtue and vice that the abundance of Ceres’s harvest could bring.