Dinner dress

This morning we went to Barnard Castle to the Bowes Museum which is housed in a purpose built museum built as a French Chateau by John and Josephine Bowes in the 19th Century.
The portrait shows Josephine wearing a dinner dress which has been recreated exactly and to her exact measurements by the international historical costumier Luca Costigliolo and that is in the foreground. Apparently, it is a dinner dress and not a ball dress because the waist has been made one and a half inches larger than her ball gowns so that she had room to eat!!!
It was absolutely AMAZING how small the waists of the ladies in those days were - this was by no means the dress with the smallest waist.