Stockings
Unknown Artist
1870–90
Medium
Silk
Classification
Stockings
Culture
American
Department
Costume Institute
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. Arthur L. Swift, 1962
Accession Number
2009.300.7232a, b
Art Historical Context
Step into the elegant world of 19th-century American fashion with *Stockings*, a delicate pair crafted from luxurious silk between 1870 and 1890. Housed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, this piece hails from the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection, gifted through Mrs. Arthur L. Swift 1962 and transferred in 2009. As an everyday yet intimate garment, these stockings exemplify the refined undergarments essential to women's wardrobes during the Gilded Age, a time of rapid industrialization and evolving social norms in the United States. Silk, prized for its smooth sheen, dur...