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If you are a reader of my blog, you know I love anything connected to Italy. I’m currently reading an interesting novel entitled Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker, and the protagonist is a black dressmaker who is busily employed in Washington City in the 1860s, making “mantuas” for the city’s elite.

What is a “Mantua?” I wondered, and is it related to Mantova, one of my favorite Italian cities?

Well, you can imagine that it didn’t take me long to hop over to Wikipedia to learn just exactly what a “Mantua” is. And, sure enough, as I suspected and hoped, it is a dress type whose name may relate to the Anglicized version of the name of the Italian city, Mantova.

And here I gleefully share with you what I just learned about the “Mantua!”

Mantua (clothing)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mantua and petticoat of silk brocade, British, c. 1708 (MET)

A Mantua (perhaps from the French manteuil or “mantle”) is a type of a woman’s dress, worn in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Originally a loose gown, the later mantua was an overgown or robe typically worn over stays, stomacher and a co-ordinating petticoat.

The mantua or manteau was a new fashion that arose in the 1670s. Instead of a bodice and skirt cut separately, the mantua hung from the shoulders to the floor (in the manner of dresses of earlier periods) which may have originated as the female version of the men’s banyan, worn for ‘undress’ wear.

Gradually it developed into a draped and pleated dress and eventually evolved into a dress worn looped and draped up over a contrasting petticoat and a stomacher. The combination of the mantua-and-stomacher resulted in a high, square neckline in contrast to the broad, off-the-shoulder neckline previously popular in fashion. The new look was both more modest and covered-up than previous fashions and decidedly fussy, with bows, frills, ribbons, and other trim, but the short string of pearls and pearl earrings or ‘eardrops’ worn since the 1630s remained popular.

The mantua, made from a single length of fabric pleated to fit with a long train, was ideal for showing the designs of the new elaborately patterned silks that replaced the solid-colored satins popular in mid-century.

Etymology
The origins of the term “Mantua,” are unclear. The garment may have been named after Mantua, Italy, a center of production for some of the expensive silks that would have been used to make up such garments. The term may also derive from “manteau,” the French term for a coat.

From this garment arose the term ‘mantua-maker,’ an early term for a women’s dressmaker.

Evolution of the Mantua

The earliest mantuas emerged in the late 17th century as a comfortable alternative to the boned bodices and separate skirts then widely worn.

The mantua featured elbow-length, cuffed sleeves, and the overskirt was typically drawn back over the hips to expose the petticoat beneath. In the earliest mantuas, the long trained skirt was allowed to trail. From about 1710, it became customary to pin up the train.

Early mantua and petticoat of striped wool, with metal thread embroidery, British, late 17th century. (MET)

The construction of the mantua was altered so that once the train was pinned up, the exposed reverse of the train showed the proper face of the fabric or embroidery. One of the earliest extant examples of this, dated to 1710–1720, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collections.

By the mid-18th century, the mantua had evolved into a formal version principally worn for court dress. The draping of the overskirt became increasingly stylized, with the back panel of the train almost entirely concealed.[4][5]

The final version of the mantua, which emerged around 1780, bore little resemblance to the original mantua of nearly a century earlier. Instead of earlier elaborate draperies and folds, the train had evolved into a length of fabric attached to the back of the bodice, as illustrated in an example in the Victoria and Albert Museum (see: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O127173/mantua/mantua-unknown/).

Surviving examples

Extant examples of the 17th century mantua are extremely rare. Perhaps the only known extant adult-size example is an embroidered wool mantua and petticoat in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. A pattern taken from this mantua has been published by Norah Waugh. The Victoria and Albert Museum owns aa very rare late 17th century fashion doll dressed in a pink silk mantua and petticoat.

Also in the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a mantua and petticoat in salmon pink bizarre silk dated to 1708. Another early mantua, the silk dated to roughly 1708–09 belongs to the Clive House Museum, Shrewsbury; a pattern for this mantua has been taken by Janet Arnold.

Most mantuas preserved in museum collections are formal versions from the mid-18th century, intended for court dress. The Berrington Hall mantua of the 1760s in Berrington Hall, most likely worn by Ann Harley (née Bangham) as Lady Mayoress of London, and a blue silk mantua with matching stomacher and petticoat dated ca. 1750-65 in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, are examples of this type of mantua.

1750s court mantua showing the stylized back drapery. (MET)

And, just for fun, although the Wikipedia article didn’t include these images, I thought it would be fun to add some dresses that I now know to be “mantuas” from art: