Description:

Cleveland Frances


Frances F. Cleveland's Reception Dress Fragment, with Outstanding Provenance

 

Dress fragment accompanied by original handwritten provenance inscribed: "Piece of Mrs. Cleveland's reception dress when she was in the White House." The cut velvet remnant has a maroon ground with taupe, orange, and black foliate accents. Roughly square-sized, it measures 2.25" x 2.75".  A few pulled threads, else near fine. Bright and bold colors. From the collection of the Luray Museum of Luray, Virginia.

 

This dress fragment dates from after the June 1886 marriage of 49-year-old President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) to his 21-year-old ward, Frances F. Cleveland (1864-1947). Grover Cleveland is the only U.S. President to have served non-consecutive presidential terms, the first between 1885 and 1889, and the second between 1893-1897.

 

Accustomed as they were to a bachelor president during the first half of his first term, the young First Lady immediately enchanted the public. Frances was universally recognized as a beauty; she had dark blue eyes, and styled her dark hair in a coiffure that would later be called "a la Cleveland," with curls in the front and trimmed hair at the nape. Her impeccable sartorial sense combined with opportunity--a 9-month-long Grand Tour before her wedding--to provide her with a trousseau of French couture made by such designers as Charles Frederick Worth.

 

Mrs. Cleveland admired Worth's aesthetic: lighter colored clothing that experimented with texture, often adorned with any or all of that era's frippery: beads, sequins, rhinestones, tassels, ribbon, fringe, feathers, fur, berries, and flowers. The First Lady had a huge wardrobe of interchangeable skirts and blouses made by dressmakers from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. She gained some notoriety for wearing off-the-shoulder or low-cut gowns.

 

Frances soon became a style trendsetter, and her popularity only increased when her image was ubiquitously used (without her permission) to advertise products and services of the day. It is alleged that, after Washington journalists invented a news story that Mrs. Cleveland had stopped wearing dress bustles, demand for them fell precipitously among ladies au courant.

 

The extroverted First Lady hosted two White House receptions a week during the social season, one scheduled on Saturdays so that working women could attend. She probably wore a dress matching this fabric fragment on one of those occasions.

 

The Luray Museum of Luray, Virginia was started by town resident Mary "Mollie" Zeiler Zerkle (1845-1933). According to family history, nineteen-year-old "Mollie" nursed Union soldiers after the 1864 Battle of New Market. She married Lemuel Zerkle, and the two lived in New Market, Virginia until 1890. That year, the family relocated to Luray, fourteen miles east across the Massanutten Mountain range, where Lemuel had secured a post as Superintendent of Luray Caverns. Local historian Daniel Vaughn reported that the museum operated between 1938-1960, after which point the collection was sold at auction.

 

Gene H. Baber of Fisherville, Virginia was an avid antique collector. His collection included everything from Civil War letters to epaulettes, from early frakturs to vintage wind-up toys.

 

Provenance: Estate of Gene H. Baber, Fishersville, Virginia; Collection of Mary "Mollie" Zeiler Zerkle and Lemuel Zerkle, Luray Museum, Luray, Virginia.

 


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