A Romantic Past:  What does a white muslin gown have to do with Pompeii?

This talk -- the annual Faculty Lecture of the Puget Sound Society of the Archaeological Institute of America -- will explore a radical change in the silhouette of female dress that occurred in Jane Austen’s England at the turn of the 19^thC.  In doing so, it will note some of the many ways the (newly rediscovered??) classical past influenced women’s fashion and ousted the wide skirts worn for many centuries in favor of the slender, high-waisted gowns that predominated during the early Regency period.  Along the way we will meet a collector of beautiful antiquities, the mistress of Lord Nelson, a great chemist who died in the Terror, a brilliant and troubling artist--and read of the passing of a most notable bluestocking.