University of Virginia Historical Collections at the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library

Contributions of the UVa Art Museum

Mrs. Rhoda Cranston
The Portrait of Rhoda Cranston
Source: "The Portrait of Rhoda Cranston " by John Singleton Copley, University of Virginia Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Alan Cunningham.

This 18th-century lady, Mrs. Rhoda Cranston, wears a typical corset of the time, which created an "architectural" shape, turning her torso into a straight-sided cone.   The Founding Mothers of the United States wore such corsets as part of their everyday dress.

Corset Shop
Corset Shop
A corset shop in Paris, early 1900s, Eugene Atget. Source: University of Virginia Art Museum, Gift of Derwood S. Chase, Jr.

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