Men’s dressing gown
Italian manufacture
A dressing gown designed to be worn over a nightshirt, with red silk embroidered with floral and anthropomorphic motifs in the typically oriental-inspired fashion of the period. Slightly fitted at the waist and flared below; overlapping fastening with twelve covered buttons and braiding. The cap and jabot are replicas.
A popular fashion in the eighteenth century thanks to the East India Company, interest in exotic designs also extended to the decorative motifs used in the applied arts. For a long time, the style was associated with comfortable men's garments such as this dressing gown, which would usually have been worn with slippers for the feet, while in the intimacy of the domestic setting a nightcap or Turkish-style turban would have replaced the wig.
M,A. Carlano, in Curiosità di una reggia. Vicende della Guardaroba di Palazzo Pitti, a cura di K.Ashengreen Piacenti e S.Pinto, Firenze 1979, n.7, p. 84; G. Chesne Dauphiné Griffo, Catalogo,La Galleria del Costume/1, a cura di K.Aschengreen Piacenti, Firenze 1983, n.2, pp. 36-37; Eleganze della moda fra ‘700 e ‘800. Abiti storici dalla Galleria del Costume di Palazzo Pitti, a cura di C. Chiarelli e C. Sisi, Milano 1997, n.3, pp.20, 66. Catalogo della mostra Caravino, Castello di Masino, 18 aprile-27 luglio,1997.
