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Abstract
This dissertation studies invented dress in portraits of American women in the eighteenth century, with particular focus on the works of John Singleton Copley (1738–1815) and Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827), who used imaginary dress in approximately half of their portraits of female sitters. Part One discusses the history of this practice, which began with the work of Van Dyck in England, and interprets it as an aspect of the practice of portraying women in terms of ideal beauty and feminine virtue rather than as unique individuals. The thesis centers on two aspects of eighteenth-century visual culture: the violent and strongly gendered criticism of fashionable dress in the period, which concerned itself with women's behaviour, and the continuing strength of the artistic tradition that portrayed women as ideals. Because fashion was viewed as an indicator of women's behaviour and morality, and because it represented in reality one of the few arenas under feminine control, invented dress, it is proposed, represented a masculine vision of the ideal woman. Parts Two and Three analyse the invented dress of Copley and Peale respectively. For each artist, his invented dress is analysed in order to understand his methods, sources, and intentions. Particular attention is given to the relation between American and English invented dress, an area of study previously difficult because of the premise that the dress represented masquerade costume, a custom unique to eighteenth-century England. Understanding the dress as an artistic practice relating to women's portraiture, stemming from the seventeenth century, and not dependent on masquerade, provides a coherent interpretive context for pictures of American women. The latter half of each of these sections is devoted to the interpretation of invented dress within the context of the artist's portraiture of women. Individual examples are examined that reveal the themes of ideal beauty and feminine virtue. Appendices provide a collection of texts that discuss invented dress from the first part of the seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth, and a listing of portraits by Copley and Peale in invented dress, with an analysis of sitters' ages.
