Object Search Record
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Metadata
Catalog Number |
1976.1.0300.1 |
Object Name |
Jacket |
Date |
12/27/1893 |
Description |
This black wool jacket is part of a tuxedo (1976.1.0300.1 - .4). The shawl collar is black satin with one buttonhole on the left collar. The body of the jacket is lined with black silk and the sleeves are lined with cream silk. On the left and right there is an interior pocket. A handsewn label on the right interior pocket is faintly printed: "MATTHEW ROCK / 315 FIFTH AVENUE" * and handwritten: "12.27.93 / 7391 / A.S. Van Wickle." *Like many of the staid brownstone mansions on Fifth Avenue below 34th Street, No. 315 had fallen victim to commerce by 1889. The New York branch of the Parisian art gallery M. Durand-Ruel had moved into the old house. That year the firm offered "Old Masters of the French school of 1850 and of all the modern artists, including the finest paintings of the Impressionists." Only two years later a more utilitarian showroom was in the building, that of the Wood Mosaic Co., whose factory was in Rochester, New York. The company sold upscale "hardwood floors, from plainest strips of quartered oak to most elaborate inlaid work, using suitable foreign and domestic woods." By March 1894 Mathias Rock, who went by the Anglicized "Matthew," operated his merchant tailoring shop here. The Sun called him "among the best known of the New York tailors." Unlike other tailors, "merchant tailors" owned their businesses, supplied the fabrics and created custom-made apparel, most often for the carriage trade. Merchant tailors were the male equivalent of the high-end dressmakers who also set up shop in the former mansions. Rock's successful apparel business earned him a fortune and by the turn of the century he was investing heavily in Manhattan real estate. On January 19, 1905 The Sun reported that he had leased for 21 years the four-story building where he had operated for a decade. http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-rock-building-no-315-fifth-avenue.html |
Maker's Information |
MATTHEW ROCK / 315 FIFTH AVENUE |
Materials |
Wool/Silk/Satin |
Condition |
Fair |
Associated with |
Van Wickle, Augustus Stout |
Search Terms |
Jacket Tuxedo |
Catalog Sub-category |
Clothing -- Outerwear |