Let's close the thread that started on Friday and that analysed fashion from the 1700s via art and costume displays. For today let's have a look at the collection from Palazzo Mocenigo in Venice.
The Museum and Study Centre of the History of Fabrics and Costumes currently offers visitors the chance to see a new layout, with many costumes and garments finally taken out of its rich archives and storerooms to be admired in all their splendour.
The new itinerary covers 19 rooms on the first piano nobile: all of them are furnished in the 18th century style and look at the life and activities of Venetian noble families from those times; one section is also dedicated to fragrances (but we will look at it another time as this post is mainly about fashion and interior design).
In most rooms visitors will find striking chandeliers in multi-coloured blown glass hand-worked into bouquets of flowers ("a cioca" style): one sumptuous design is attributed to the most important Venetian glass maker of the 18th century, Giuseppe Briati (1686-1772) and it hangs from a ceiling with a pastel fresco depicting allegorical figures - the winged Knowledge, political and religious Power, Justice with the scales, Peace with an olive branch, Fortitude and warrior Virtue.
Many furniture pieces come from the Palazzo's own collection and so do the paintings like the portraits of the Mocenigo family or of the sovereigns under whom the Mocenigo family were ambassadors (in some cases the paintings come from the Correr Museum and Ca' Rezzonico collections).
Though there are examples of textiles and curtains recently recreated by Rubelli, the rooms mainly feature original and valuable fabrics such as ciselé soprarizzo velvets or precious pieces from the 13th-14th-centuries like the allucciolato brocade reflecting the light and producing a sparkling effect thanks to its silver and gold thread embroideries. All the original fabrics come from the museum's Study Centre of the History of Fabrics and Costumes.
There are very strong synergies between fashion and interior design in the new layout: some rooms feature historical-society tableaux that try to present paintings, fashion and furniture in their original and cultural contexts.
One room features for example several dummies clad in different lady's dresses all surrounding a table covered in precious fabrics and with rare and diverse objects crafted from a wide range of materials - filigree plates and fumé buckets, fruit stands, candle holders, chalcedony chalices and goblets.
Fashion-wise there is a lot to discover in each room: light fabrics and clear colours prevail when it comes to women's clothing, but their construction was quite complicated with skirts puffed out at the waist by paniers, tight-fitting bodices putting emphasis on the breast area and cascades of lace hanging from the sleeves.
There are also a few examples of andrienne: known as the andrié in Venice, this style offered freedom of movement and was characterised by a pleated tail that descended from the shoulders, widening out to a broad train.
The Palazzo Mocenigo collection is particularly notable for its menswear pieces. The costumes on display show indeed an evolution from the severe models of the 16th and 17th centuries of military inspiration to looser and more refined forms, completed by the adoption of elaborate lacework and embroideries.
One room is dedicated to the gown that became the official form of dress for patricians: the Savi, Avogadori and heads of the Quarantia donned a black fabric robe with large sleeves and red lining; the ducal Senators and Advisors wore instead a red robe.
All members of nobility had to wear this garment when carrying out their institutional functions or sitting in the Councils or staying in the area of Saint Mark's Square.
Room eleven is a key room for menswear fans: this space is indeed dedicated to the waistcoat conceived as a quintessential garment of the male wardrobe and features over fifty samples from the Cini deposits in the collections of the Study Centre.
Examples go from short to knee-length waistcoats, from partially to completely buttoned up garments (in the same room there are also a few tailcoats in silk and linen decorated with metal threads, dated 1750 or 1775-1799).
All the waistcoats on display have one thing in common - they were made with luxurious fabrics. The front was indeed always made with richly and lavishly decorated silk; the back was instead made of linen and cotton.
Waistcoats were mainly meant as protection against the cold, but, as the decades passed, this garment went through several transformations, shortening and reaching just below the waist and ending in two tails.
At the end of the 18th century it no longer had sleeves, but had a collar. Each piece on display in this section is a masterpiece and a testament to the skills of many Venetian and Italian artisans from those times (it is actually a shame that they didn't do a book only on this section or a series of postcards for menswear fans).
Accessories fans will instead be disappointed as there are no proper displays on small objects of desire such as gloves, shoes or fans.
Yet the museum has many examples of such objects in its collections, so something along these lines will probably be arranged as time and money will allow the curators to do so.
In the meantime, there is plenty to see in these scenarios and a lot to learn about the role of desirable and tantalising interior pieces in the interactions between noble families from those times. You can bet that, while wandering around the rooms of the Palazzo, some visitors may find themselves in a world where - as suggested by the protagonist of Dominique Vivant Denon's novella No Tomorrow (1777) - a woman's cabinet could be even more seductive than the woman herself, or - we may add - than the gown she is wearing.
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