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18th Century Linen Clothing

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The Place of Fabrics: Linen

“For the heat is beyond your conception”: men’s summer dress in the American south during the long eighteenth-century

Of the Linen-Draper, The London Tradesman (1747)

Last updated: Jan 5, 2024

Linen was commonly used for shirts, shifts, functional aprons, and the linings of many other garments (including waistcoats and gowns). Linen is also used as the ground for some embroidered garments and accessories, such as women’s petticoats and pockets. Several women’s waistcoats are made of quilted and/or embroidered linen, too.

Some people recommend linen for re-enactment clothing (especially for outdoor events in hot weather), but others note the relative lack of garments specifically described as being made of linen or the lack of extant garments. See the Additional Resources on this page for some discussion and analysis of descriptions of linen clothing.

This page collects links to extant linen garments from the 18th century, along with references to linen clothing. There are sections on white linen clothing, linen clothing with embroidery, linen clothing with printed patterns, buff or natural linen clothing, solid-colored dyed linen clothing, and checked or striped linen clothing.

White linen clothing

Etienne Loys’ 1753 portrait of Guillaume Barcellon with a tennis racket probably shows a white linen waistcoat similar to the examples below. Likewise, An Edinburgh Auction shows James Graham, “wearing his accustomed suit of white linen with black stockings.” I suspect Noel Desenfans is also wearing a linen suit.

For more on white linen clothing worn in hot climates, see “For the heat is beyond your conception”: men’s summer dress in the American south during the long eighteenth-century.

Text references to white linen clothing (other than shirts, shifts, aprons, etc.)

White linen clothing with embroidered designs

Many embroidered petticoats and embroidered pockets also use a white linen ground.

  • Met 45.49, a sleeved linen waistcoat, British, early 18th century
  • LACMA M.80.43.4a-b, a pair of mitts in linen with silk embroidery, probably made in India for the Western market, 1700-1725
  • Kunstmuseum Den Haag 0150867, fine linen mitts embroidered with black silk
  • Met 1993.17a, b, an embroidered dress, Italy, 1725-1750
  • Met C.I.66.34, an embroidered robe à l’anglaise, British, 1725-1750
  • Met 54.124, a child’s dress, linen embroidered with wool, American, mid-18th century
  • Met 42.188.2, a linen petticoat embroidered with crewel wool in New England, c. 1750
  • KM 67871.2, white linen robe à l'anglaise with blue embroidery, c. 1750-1799
  • Connecticut Historical Society 1978.104.0, a small boy’s sleeved waistcoat with crewel embroidery, 1758-1760
  • National Trust 1350246, a boy’s waistcoat, 1760-1770; probably homespun twilled linen, lined with a coarser twilled linen and embroidered in silks
  • National Trust 1365653.1, an embroidered linen dress, c. 1770
  • Kerry Taylor Auctions Dec 12 2016, Lot 40, an embroidered linen open robe, English, 1770s
  • KM 678712.2, a robe à l’angalise in a cotton-linen blend, embroidered with blue cotton, 1770s
  • Met 1998.314a, b, a robe à la polonaise in heavy linen with floral appliqués outlined in sequins, made in Britain c. 1780
  • V&A 184-1898, “a woman's gown of linen tamboured in an all-over pattern of serpentine trails with flowers and leaves in shades of pink, green, yellow and red, with additional herringbone stitch,”, possibly embroidered and made in the 1770s and then remade in the 1780s
  • Philadelphia Museum of Art 1991-75-27, a tan linen waistcoat with silk embroidery, late 18th century
  • Met 2010.156, an embroidered linen skirt, British, late 18th century
  • Meg Andrews 8327, a linen embroidered waistcoat with tambour embroidery in a guilloche design, 1790s

Additional Resources

Of the Callico-Printer, The London Tradesman (1747)

White linen clothing with printed designs

From Identifying Printed Textiles in Dress 1740-1890:

a) Because of linen manufacture being a home industry, printed linens like fustians were not subject to the prohibition of 1722 to 1774. Nevertheless, relatively few printed linen garments survive to represent this period. By 1770, linens were being printed in the regions of London, Manchester, Carlisle, Glasgow and Dublin. Scottish printers appear to have made a speciality of handkerchiefs, but the distribution of garment printing of linens has not yet been studied.
b) Printed linens enjoyed wide sales in both the home and export markets. That printed linens gained some measure of fashionability is demonstrated by examples in the Barbara Johnson album, in which both plate-printed and block-printed examples occur. Printed linens gained an association with country wear that was well developed by the 1780s. In a novel of 1789, the heroine disguises herself “as country lass, in a fine flowered linen gown, pink petticoat, straw hat, and white cloth cloak…” [Bennett, Agnes Maria. Agnes de-Courci, a domestic tale. Bath, 1789, p.206]. Another country maiden attired for a rustic fête wears “a little straw-hat, lined with pink, and a flowered linen gown, tied with ribbons of the same colour, and pinned back to shew a pink petticoat…” [Keate, George. Sketches from nature; taken, and coloured in a journey to Margate. London, 1790, p.121.]
c) Linen is not an easy fibre to print, and it is more difficult to obtain the same depth of shade as on cotton. This may be why it is usually found printed with simpler colour effects than cotton. Madder colours were often used as these could withstand the laundering (bucking with alkalis) that linens were expected to endure.
  • Morphy Auctions Lot 1186, a woman’s short gown made from block-printed linen possibly produced c. 1730-1740, “the ground of the fabric now an ivory color and the printed floral devices with black (now brown) outline work, leaves and petals colored in green and pinkish red, respectively”
  • National Trust 814614.11, a doll’s gown in linen block printed in red with leaf, bird foot, and triple-dot design, 1740-1760
  • In Fitting & Proper: “Woman’s gown, c. 1740-60, altered c. 1775-80, an open robe in beige linen, block printed in two shades of brown, lined with beige linen and with blue and white checked linen”
  • Fries T1957-450, a house dress or contouche in white linen printed with a red design, c. 1750-1799
  • Centraal Museum 11020, a girl’s caraco in ivory-colored linen printed with a sprinkled pattern of red and blue flowers, lined with white linen, c. 1750-1775
  • Met C.I.37.2, a coat (bedgown), American, third quarter of the 18th century
  • Fries Museum T1957-450, a contouche in printed linen, c. 1750-1799
  • Historic New England 1998.5875, dress with blue copperplate printed floral pattern on cream ground, worn by Deborah Sampson, 1760-1790
  • Printed linen waistcoat, c. 1765-1770; “This waistcoat is lined in fine linen or cotton, and has two slightly different patterns on the front and back. It is closed with self covered buttons and welted buttonholes. The absence of pocket bags under the flaps suggest that perhaps this was a casual waistcoat for wear with a banyan and matching cap.”
  • Chertsey M.1989.13, “white linen open robe block printed with bamboo and flowering branches design in rose madder, brown and blue,” c. 1770-1773
  • KCI AC7621 92-34-2AB, robe à la française in white glazed plain-weave linen with a blue floral print, France, 1770s
  • Manchester 1970.199, a white linen dress “White linen, block printed in spaced pairs of narrow lilac stripes with related pattern of sprigs and a light scattering of smaller sprigs inbetween in red, yellow and brown. The sprigs are 'pencilled' by hand.” See also Identifying Printed Textiles in Dress 1740-1890.
  • Met 26.265.48, a quilted petticoat in linen with two different printed designs, France, late 18th century
  • Centraal Museum 14571, a jacket for an infant in printed linen, c. 1775
  • Fries Museum T1956-436, a printed linen handkerchief, c. 1775-1799
  • V&A T.219-1966, a lady’s swallowtail jacket made of “linen printed in a repeating pattern of floral sprigs,” France, 1780s
  • V&A T.230-1927, a gown in block-printed linen, England, 1780s
  • From Fitting & Proper: Woman’s shortgown, c. 1780-1800, “brown and off-white figured print cotton, lined with off-white linen and with brown and off-white floral printed linen in the sleeves”; also a woman’s underpetticoat, c. 1780-1800, “an off-white linen petticoat trimmmed with bands of two different brown and off-white linen floral prints, one on the inside of the hem and one on the outside”

Text references to printed linen clothing

Buff or natural linen (probably undyed and unbleached) linen clothing

Additional Resources

Of Dying Flax and Linnen, A Perfect Diſcovery of the Art of Dying (1705)

Solid-colored dyed linen clothing in colors other than white

Text references to linen clothing in colors other than white

The predominant color in the text references – as in the extant examples above – is brown. However, “brown linen” may also refer to unbleached linen, like the natural/buff colored linen garments listed elsewhere on this page.

See also the blue aprons notebook page for additional references & depictions relating to blue linen aprons.

Neal Hurst, associate curator of costume and textiles at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, writes:

In Williamsburg the 2nd Virginia regiment is having their osnaburg hunting shirts dyed purple: “It is Expected that each Capt. will with all Expedition Provide Legins for his men & hunting shirts Dy’d of a purple Coulour…” (Orderly Book of the 2d Virginia Regiment, October 27, 1775)

If we continue on the hunting shirt trend, of which are generally made of linen for the continental army: In 1776, a German officer who faced American soldiers at the Battle of Long Island, described them wearing “black, white, and purple linen blouses”
Bernhard A. Uhlendorf, Revolution in America: Confidential Letters and Journals 1776-1784 of Adjutant General Major Baurmeister of the Hessian Forces (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1957), 38.

American artist Charles Willson Peale also described a multitude of colors worn on hunting shirts in the Philadelphia area and claimed that “very often these shirts were dyed brown – yellow, pink, and blue black, any colour according to the fancy of the companies.”
Jules David Prown, Art as Evidence: Writing on Art and Material Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 170. [This page is viewable via Google Books.]

The backcountry traveler John Smyth also claimed that its inhabitants chose a wide variety of color and said “Their hunting, or rifle shirts, they have also died in a variety of colours, some yellow, others red, some brown, and many wear them quite white.”
John Ferdinand Smyth Stuart, A Tour of the United States of America (Dublin: Printed by G. Perrin, 1784), 116. [You can also read this in The English Review or The Scots Magazine.]

For more of his research on hunting shirts, see “kind of armour, being peculiar to America”: The American Hunting Shirt.

Striped or checked linen clothing

Text references to checked or striped linen clothing (other than shirts or aprons)