Object of the Month – Lord Byron’s Costume
Object Of The Month
Lord Byron
22 January, 2025
Byron’s Albanian Costume
Lord Byron is perhaps one of the most infamous celebrities of the early nineteenth century. In celebration of his birthday on this day in 1788, our object of the month for January is one of the standout pieces in the Bowood Collection: Byron’s Albanian costume. The costume and how it came to be at Bowood has a fascinating story…
Fascinated by history, travel and the classical world, Byron embarked upon a Grand Tour of the Mediterranean from 1809 to 1811, taking in Spain, Malta, Albania, Turkey and Greece. Upon his return, his epic poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage was published by John Murray in 1812 and effectively turned him into a celebrity overnight. Childe Harold ran to five editions in that year alone, selling 4,500 copies in less than six months. One of its major points of popularity was that Byron captured a need for peace and the general weariness that was felt across Europe following the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars.
In 1816, Byron yet again left England, but this time it was for good. His 1815 marriage to Annabella Milbanke (1792-1860) had ended in separation in less than one year after the birth of their only child, Ada Lovelace (1815-1852). Lovelace went on to become arguably the world’s first computer programmer.
Byron returned to the Mediterranean, travelling both with friends and alone, and went on to join the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire. He passed away a folk hero in Greece at the age of 36, in Missolonghi.
Byron’s Albanian Costume
In Autumn 1809, during Byron’s Grand Tour, he visited Ali Pasha (1740-1822) of Tepelena (modern day Tepelenë in southern Albania), who was a particularly ruthless governor of the Ottoman province of Roumelia. Whilst there, he purchased many costumes, writing that they were beautifully crafted and inexpensive compared to an equivalent in England.
The Bowood costume consists of two velvet embroidered waistcoats, a jacket, a cloak, a pair of leggings, a full skirt known as a fustanella, a hat and scarf, a purse, silver sword and dagger. The length of the fustanella depended on the social standing of the wearer (which Byron himself noted when describing the costume), and this full-length version, along with the lavish decoration of the costume, shows that Byron enjoyed the tastes of a wealthy Albanian.
Though he left behind of many of the items of clothing he bought on his trip, this costume came back to England with him, and during July and August 1813, he wore it for a portrait sitting with the artist Thomas Phillips R.A. (1770-1845). The resulting portrait, Lord Byron in Albanian Dress, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1814.
How did the costume make its way to Bowood?
Before Byron was married (not that him being married ever mattered much to him when catching the eye of the people around him), he enjoyed a passing flirtation with Margaret Mercer Elphinstone (1788-1867).
Elphinstone was the daughter of Admiral Lord Keith (1746-1823) and through her mother Jane Mercer was in line to inherit the Lordship of Nairne. She was also close friends with Princess Charlotte of Wales (1796-1817), daughter of the Prince Regent, so she was quite the catch in Regency society. She was careful to keep Byron at arm’s length and they remained friends, and it has been suggested that his poem Love and Gold (written c.1812-13) could have been about her.
In May 1814, Byron decided to send Elphinstone a present, writing in a letter:
“I send you the Arnaout [Albanian] garments, which will make an admirable costume for a Dutch Dragoon.
…
It is put off & on in a few minutes – If you like the dress – keep it – I shall be very glad to get rid of it – as it reminds me of one of two things I don’t wish to remember. - - - To make it more acceptable – I have worn this very little – and never in England except for half an hour to Phillips – I had more of the same description but parted with them when my Arnouts went back to Tepalen and I returned to England, it will do for a masquerade.”
The costume, the very one Byron had posed in for his Phillips portrait, was now Elphinstone’s to do with as she pleased.
Elphinstone (thankfully) did not marry Byron, going on instead to marry Charles, the Comte de Flahaut (1785-1870), Napoleon’s aide-de-camp, in 1817. They would go on to have five daughters, the eldest of whom, Emily (1819-1895) married Henry, 4th Marquess of Lansdowne (1816-1866) in 1843. Emily inherited many incredible objects, including Bowood’s Napoleonic collection and Byron’s Albanian costume.
The costume’s rediscovery
Let’s jump forward over a century to 1962, when historian Doris Langley Moore (1902-1989) was preparing to open the Fashion Museum in Bath, which would open its doors the following year. Langley Moore was invited by Lady Lansdowne to come and have a look at the family costume collection at Bowood, where, beautifully preserved in a trunk, she found Byron’s costume. Coincidentally, Langley Moore was not only an important fashion historian, but a respected scholar of Byron. His costume went on display in Bath, until it came back to Bowood for the opening of our exhibition galleries in 1980.
It is quite unique to have a costume with such a strong provenance of who has owned it, worn it, and the hands it has passed through. We are grateful that Byron decided to entrust it to Margaret Mercer Elphinstone as a potential masquerade costume, inadvertently preserving it for generations to come.