Pixel, Goddess and Queen wrote:
On Fri, 23 Jan 2009, Zuzana Kraemerova wrote:
Hi,
I am planning to make a silk dress inspired by this picture:
http://www.sca.org.au/st_florians/university/library/articles-howtos/heraldry/HeraldicFrocksS_files/image042.jpg
But I cannot remember what the actual source for this picture is (if
there is one). I mean, is it a redrawing from a certain manuscript? Do
you think such dress is historically accurate?
If yes, I would really like to know what do you think about it's
fastening. There's no visible fastening at the front and I guess a
side-lacing would not be very frequent at that time, not to say about
back lacing. How would you fasten this dress? I would say with fron
spiral lacing, but that would really distort the pattern... Hooks and
eyes might be a solution, but again, I'm not sure if they would be
right for this period and dress.
One other thing - the tippets seem to be a separate garment, though I
believe Robin Netherton's theory of them being a part of the gown, but
on this particular picture it wouldn't make sense. The undergown would
have to be mi-parti as well to exactly match the outer dress colours
and pattern. I think medieval dresses werent THAT sophisticated.
I'll let Robin speak to the matters of the Gothic Fitted Dress, heraldic
dress and also of tippets. :-)
IIRC that's one of the color plates from Mary G. Houston's book on
13th-15th c. costume. The one plus to that book is that she lists her
sources at least some of the time so one can go investigate the
originals. I have a copy, so I could check and see whether there's a
citation for that one or if it's something she made up. She may have
based the drawing on an actual illumination but I don't *think* it's
taken completely from a real source. As I mentioned, I can check when I
get home.
I'll save you the trouble; you won't find everything you need in Houston. It
took me a *long* time to track this one down.
Houston sources this to Jacquemin's _Iconographie_. By this she means
_Iconographie générale et méthodique du costume du IVe au XIXe siècle_, by
Raphael Jacquemin, a very pretty set of costume plates published in 1869.
Where did Jacquemin get the image? He evidently copied from Paris,
Bibliotheque Nationale fr. 20082, f. 95. That, however, is not a medieval
manuscript. It is a copy of a medieval manuscript made in the late 1600s by
Roger de Gagnieres, a prominent copyist of medieval artworks.
So what about the original that de Gagnieres was copying? It was lost in a
library fire in 1737, after the copy was made, but well before any
photographic reproductions. So de Gagnieres' copy is the closest we'll ever see.
Thanks to de Gagnieres, we at least know the context of the original
manuscript. It was made as a tribute gift for King Charles V. It includes many
images of royalty and nobility in heraldic dress, clearly done so that you
know who they all are. This particular image is from a page that shows the
family and noble retainers of Queen Jeanne de Bourbon. It is presented as a
hunting scene, but everyone -- ten women, three men, and one girl -- are all
standing around in full heraldic clothing, including the guy who's stabbing
the deer, who happens to be a duke. The picture is clearly not meant to be a
realistic presentation of a hunting party, just a picturesque way to present
the royal family. Those of you who've seen my lecture on heraldic dress may
remember this image as one of the ones I point to as showing clothing that
probably never existed in life, but was invented for the purposes of the
particular illustration.
So, Houston's picture is a third-generation copy of an unrealistic image. I
have had the pleasure of examining an original edition of Jacquemin, and I
also have a photoreproduction of the relevant illumination from de Gagnieres'
copy. There are significant differences in color and other details with each
stage of copying. (For instance, somewhere along the line, one of the tippets
turned red; it's white in de Gagnieres' version.) And although we can't look
at the original manuscript, we can assume that de Gagnieres' version probably
wasn't completely accurate; he was very good, but based on other images of
his, it's obvious he didn't understand some details of medieval clothing, and
his work reflects that.
That means any construction questions based on the look of the image are moot
-- both because the form of the dress has mutated with multiple recopyings,
and because the original image almost certainly did not represent real clothing.
Sorry about that. It's a really nice dress, and I wanted it to be real when I
first saw it.
--Robin
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