Further Afield: Dressing the Court of Philip IV

In this virtual talk, Amanda Wunder from CUNY-Lehman College goes behind the scenes in the Royal Palace to investigate the lives and works of the court artisans who dressed Philip IV and his family.

The court of Philip IV (1621–1665) is best remembered today for the extreme fashions that were immortalized in the paintings of Diego Velázquez, most memorably in his iconic masterpiece Las Meninas.

This virtual talk goes behind the scenes in the Royal Palace to investigate the lives and works of the court artisans –tailors, embroiderers, shoemakers, and others– who dressed Philip IV and his family and played a crucial, if long-forgotten, role in shaping court culture in seventeenth-century Spain.

Amanda Wunder is Associate Professor of early modern European history at the City University of New York (CUNY)-Lehman College.

This talk is related to the exhibition Canvas & Silk: Historic Fashion from Madrid’s Museo del Traje on view at the Meadows Museum until Jan 9, 2022.