MID-18TH CENTURY, THE SILK PROBABLY LYON

This dress, was almost certainly made for Anne Harley, wife of The Hon. Thomas Harley (MP for London and then Herefordshire) and may well have been worn by her whilst her husband served as Lord Mayor of London 1767-8. The Harley family were resident at Berrington Hall, Herefordshire, which was completed to the designs of Henry Holland in 1778-81, and it is likely that the dress remained there until the estate was sold in the early twentieth-century. The dress was probably acquired at that time by Lady Norah More who was an inveterate collector, purchasing much from sales in the vicinity of her husband’s family home, Linley Hall, Shropshire.  The dress, now deconstructed, which has remained in the More family collection at Linley Hall, is accompanied by a hand-written note in Lady Norah’s hand identifying it as ‘…worn by Hon: Mrs Harley…/when Lady Mayoress, 1765’.