Vortex

Accumulation of selected research documents from various archives sewn with silk to Madame Jumel’s red pannier suspended from a plaster ceiling medallion created directly from the profile of Madame Jumel. Mme. Jumel Ceiling Medallion conceived & executed by Lucia Del Sanchez. Sewn by a team of talented Vortex collaborators.

The Loves of Aaron Burr:
Portraits in Corsetry & Binding

Vortex

One of the most remarkable women of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries. Madame Jumel rises from her birth in a brothel in Providence, Rhode Island, to become the wealthiest woman in  the United States with a zelig ability to appear in many of the historically important moments of her ninety year life.

The personification of Madame Jumel began with the replica of the only dress we know to exist at The Museum of The City of New York Collections.  The dress was measured, patterned and recreated in  materials as close to the original as possible. The waist, bust and proportions are that of Madame Jumel in the late 1850’s. The bas is a stack of books representing those in the Morris-Jumel Mansion archives  in French that we presume to have belonged to Stephen Jumel  dyed in coffee. Her bodice is three corsets layered over one another. The first a small brown corset on the inside is that of a ten year old girl in the 1780’s haolding dried plants. Herbs and flowers. The red velvet corset is that of someone in  the late 1790’s when Eliza Bowen would have been walking the streets of Providence with a monkey perched on her shoulder. The replica boned bodice in yellow silk is pinned open to reveal the other two corsets represents the material and mercenary achievement she  spoiled for all her life.