March 2025 Object of the Month

Styled as a reinterpretation of late fifteenth-century women’s dress in Tuscany and Veneto, Mariano Fortuny and Henriette Negrin's Eleonora dress has three possible sources of inspiration: Eleonor of Austria; Eleonor of Toledo; and Fortuny’s contemporary and close friend, the Italian actress Eleonora Duse, who is known to have worn this model on multiple occasions. 

This dress, dated to between 1910 and 1920, is of block-printed carrot orange silk velvet, with panels of dusty rose pleated silk and matching Murano glass beads and pink silk cord inserted in the sleeves and down the sides. The metallic motifs, including bands of pseudo-Arabic, recall Hispano-Moresque arts and the ornament of the Alhambra in Fortuny’s birthplace of Granada. The original blocks and strikeoffs for this pattern are preserved in the Museo Fortuny.

March 1, 2025