Fabulous wedding dress for the rich rescued INTACT from shipwreck after 350 years – World News

A spectacular dress believed to date back to around the time of the English Civil War was discovered in a chest sank aboard a ship 350 years ago off near the Netherlands

The dress is believed to have sank aboard a Dutch merchant vessel in the 1600s(Credit: Pen News)

A spectacular dress rescued from a ship believed to have been sunk around the time of the English Civil War has gone on display.

The 350-year-old garment was found aboard an unidentified Dutch merchant vessel believed to have sank beneath the waves around 1650.

Its opulent design means it was probably owned by an English noble person or the Dutch merchant society.

Made of silk interwoven with silver it was likely lightly coloured until spending centuries under water and its wealthy owner would only have worn it on special occasions.

However it ended up at the bottom of the Wadden Sea, off the coast of Texel in the Netherlands.

The dress is a little miscoloured after centuries underwater(Credit: Museum Kaap Skil/Pen News)

Anne of Denmark in a similar garment in a painting from 1605(Credit: Pen News)

Alec Ewing, curator of Museum Kaap Skil in Texel, where the dress is now displayed, said: “Only a few people in north-western Europe would be rich enough to own a garment like this.

“In England, we’d look at the high nobility; people who frequent court or are very close to the highest circles of society.

The other dress recovered from the chest in 2016(Credit: Museum Kaap Skil/Pen News)

The silver detailing in the newly recovered dress(Credit: Museum Kaap Skil/Pen News)