FROM FICHUS AT FAIRLYNCH TO COUSINS IN COSTUME (WINTER 2025)

 


These three splendid 18th century open robes dated respectively 1740, 1750 and 1770 formed part of the impressive 2025 costume display curated by Jill Salen at Budleigh Salterton’s Fairlynch Museum. 

It’s just a shame that we don’t know where they were worn and who wore them. Thanks to artist John Singleton Copley, who painted the two American ladies below, we know who wore such a similarly splendid costume, members of an equally affluent society across the Atlantic in Salem.  

 

 

Mary Toppan Pickman (1744-1817), left, spent her life in Salem. Her cousin, Mary Turner Sargent (1743-1813), moved to Gloucester in Massachusetts, some 16 miles north-east. 

Images courtesy, respectively of Yale University Art Gallery and De Young Museum, San Francisco.

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