Museum of Fine Arts

Founded in Boston in 1870, the collection of examples of textiles and costume began immediately. There are notable collections of Andean fabrics, textiles from the Spanish colonial period, Indonesian batiks, and textiles from the Aegean region. The dress collection is based mainly on the McCormick and Lehman donations of European clothing from the 16^th to 19^th centuries. Donors from Boston also provided examples of locally made embroidery, as well as a large collection of items by Worth from the end of the 19^th century. The D.W. Ross and W.S. Bigelow collections also contain pieces from the late 18^th century through the first decades of the 19^th.