era: 1870s
material: silk taffeta
found: Contentment Farm Antiques, 2004
Gown with two bodices, day bodice and dinner bodice. Two toned, close tablier, ruching, it all fits with the very end of the 1870s.
So glad that there is a watermark on these images!
http://contentment.typepad.com/contentment_farm/victorian/
They have some very nice archives. I recognise a few of the other garments in here! I’ll probably get to them as I go through year by year in my own archives 🙂