Canvas & Silk: Historic Fashion from Madrid’s Museo del Traje

The Meadows Museum and Madrid’s Museo del Traje present an exhibition of Spanish dress and fashion that pairs approximately 40 paintings from the Meadows’ collection with historic dress and accessories.

Spanish fashion has long been a point of interest for the Meadows Museum, whether in the form of past exhibitions or as portrayed in the collection’s prints, paintings, and sculptures. Rather than focus on a particular artist, Canvas & Silk: Historic Fashion from Madrid’s Museo del Traje will for the first time pair works in the Meadows collection with representative examples of the historic dress depicted to shed new light on the relationship between representation and reality, between image and artifact.

The exhibition is possible thanks to an unprecedented collaboration with Madrid’s premier museum of historic dress, the Museo del Traje, and seeks to offer a glimpse into some historical fashions through the lens of Spanish art.

Canvas & Silk will be curated in collaboration with the Museo del Traje and marks that institution’s first major partnership with an American museum. Loans include jewelry, shoes, accessories, and ensembles for men, women, and children. The combined installation of objects and images from the Enlightenment to the modern era will facilitate rich dialogues between fashion and the fine arts in which the visitor will experience and learn about the evolution of both.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated publication featuring a single essay co-authored by the exhibition’s curators, Amanda W. Dotseth (Meadows Museum) and Elvira González (Museo del Traje).

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