Dress

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

With the opening of the Eastern markets, Indian printed cottons found their way into France. At first they were very expensive, and French manufacturers tried to copy them by printing designs with wooden blocks on cotton. The silk and wool industries objected, and numerous edicts forbidding the importation or manufacture of printed textiles were issued. The edicts were universally ignored, and by 1759 all restrictions had been removed. Factories for the production of printed cottons opened in Nantes, Rouen, and Lyons, but the most famous center was at Jouy. Its founder, Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf, developed a system of fast-color dyeing and invented the copperplate printing process. The engraver Jean-Baptiste Huet, the principal designer for the Jouy factory between 1783 and 1811, probably designed the pattern on this toile de Jouy day dress, which has been identified as les bonnes herbes.

The Costume Institute

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Costume Institute's collection of more than thirty-three thousand objects represents seven centuries of fashionable dress and accessories for men, women, and children, from the fifteenth century to the present.

Metropolitan Museum of Art