abendgules | Entries tagged with cranachgown

A lovely newcomer took some pictures - this is in the little courtyard adjascent to the site:

And of course, the Cranach painting that inspires it - mostly bachlorette number 2, but with number 3's geometric bust band decor.

Three saxon princesses on the marriage market, wearing their dowries

Current Mood: dangerously smug

Thanks for your encouraging remarks about the gown.

maryf and

kirieldp commented about the undergown. I'll be honest, I don't know if German noble ladies wore undergowns as a matter of course.
The idea developed with milady Anne of Wokyngham's help, as she was the more knowledgeable of the two of us about 16th c. clothing, but she's the first to say she knows English, not German, clothes.
But there's a good argument based on her research. 16th c. English folk very reliably wear linen underclothes, and then two layers of clothing. The terminology isn't consistent, but 'kirtles' (underneath) and 'gowns' (over top) are used by the Tudor Tailor authors.
The kirtles tend to provide the support and shaping, the gowns provide lush layers to display. This convention goes back to previous periods, at least in England.
Looking at paintings, 99% of women wearing this style had a white underlayer, that showed up the lacing across the stomach. (There's one portrait where it's black.)
So what is the visible white bit? The options are:
- a chemise: in which case there's only one layer of gown providing support and shape, and the German ladies are exposing their tummies to the elements covered only with linen or silk.
This struck me as unlikely. For one thing, chemises are puffy and ruffly, and these ladies tums are uniformly smooth, whereas the puffy and pleated parts of their chemises are clearly illustrated quite beautifully. If you wore an ordinary chemise under a gown that had an open space around the tum, surely it would puff out between the lacings?
- a kirtle or petticoat with a white bodice, possibly with the heavy cartridge-pleat skirts attached. Lady Anneke suggested this option to me, and it makes a lot of sense. A doublet over it, with the odd bust-band, would then be decorative, not supportive.
If I did this gown over, I think I might go this route - though then I'd have to find a way to keep the doublet from riding up, because it's cut quite short and snug.
- a kirtle or petticoat of any colour, with a white 'stomacher' pinned in - like mine. English ladies wore assorted parts of their gowns pinned together (stomachers, partlets, sleeves, skirts), so the pinning is quite plausible.

What clinched it for me is some paintings by Cranach featuring the woman caught in adultery, dated around 1540s. There are several, with the same basic composition, and the woman is always wearing a peach or vermilion gown that is unlaced, though the details vary - sometimes the angry crowd around her are in armour, sometimes in civilian clothing.
(Notes from the Met Museum say there are over 15 versions - must have been the hit of his corner of Germany.)
Christ and the adulteress, detail, Cranach elder, 1532
Same image, full image
ETA: found one source, it's in the Met.
Christ and the adulteress, Cranach the elder, 1540s accession no. 1982.60.35
(small copy is in my scrapbook, but go look at the Met Museum site, you can zoom brilliantly! Very cool).

The adulteress has presumeably been hustled straight from the offending bed, with no time to even lace up her gown.
Her chemise is, I think, showing as a ruffled layer across her bust, and then there's a white triangular space between the two sides of the gown, that has loose lacing over it. I'm not certain if the line around her neck is a dark necklace, or possibly a finished edge of an extremely fine translucent chemise or partlet, as fine and see-through as her veil.
But if that's the chemise, what's the ruffly bit over the boobs?
In the Met zoomed version, you can clearly see boobs through the ruffled shirt.
AND you can see that the white bit extends around her shoulders, just short of the black edge of the outer gown.
(You can also see the beautiful delicate blackwork in her veil - it must have looked like it was just floating free over her face, unattached to anything, the linen is so fine.)
This white line, to me, suggests that the white bit between the two 'lapels' of the doublet isn't just chemise, but is a layer of gown, one that continues under the orange one. So increasingly, the white kirtle is looking like a good option.
This adulteress' gown doesn't seem to include a bust band - either styles had moved on from the Saxon princess era, or the lady was swept from her room before she could grab it. Not certain!

So: that's why I'm wearing an underdress for this outfit. YMMV.

Current Mood: pleased

Man I miss bright sunny clear days. You can count them on one hand in London, even in summer. Today it's beautifully clear, and just around 0. Gorgeous.

On cheery topics, the Cranach gown is getting my undivided craft attention, because it's the only craft thing I have here.
I got the chemise neckline knife-pleated into a band, and both sleeves cartridge-pleat-gathered into a cuff, leaving a big frill on the other side of the cuff band. The rolled hem on the cuffs (I figured out rolled hems! hurrah! with a tutorial online) makes the frill really stand out, because the linen is still rather stiff. I think it'll soften with washing.

As a general gathering method, I think cartridge-pleating isn't much better than regular gathering stitches. It's only worthwile if you're going to stitch down every pleat. The shirts in the new PoF are very precisely pleated, but they probably had finer linen and more of it!

My current flight plans bring me back 3 days before Crown, so if all goes well, I'll still be back, and in time to finish the bustband, hang the skirt, and hem it.

If visiting my folks tells me anything, it's to keep on top of your clutter. They've lived in the same house since 1966, and rather than dealing with their stuff, they've built a new shelf or cupboard to store it: for books, for papers, for old tools, clothes, camping gear, hunting kit, and god knows how much archery kit. I'm terrified of having to clear out the house, without knowing what on earth is important, and to whom.

Mum has kept her notes from nursing college in the late 1950s - they're practically worth returning to the college as historic research material now.

If you can: go home today, and throw out a bag of stuff. Doesn't matter what it is - just deal with it.

Off to make soup with mum for delivery to the drop-in centre, then to hospital to visit, then possibly some shopping - top-grade maple syrup and the toiletries I can't find in the UK. Hoping to hit MEC at some point to see what's available. My current MEC jacket is pretty tired out and is wearing through at the cuffs.

Current Mood: calm

Remembering that I want to look like princess no. 2 here, I've finished the 2-part sleeves, with guidance and patterning by milady Anne of Wokyingham. I'm pretty pleased with the result, and hope to heck they fit in the finished product!
Hopefully, hopefully, to be modelled at Crown at the end of the month.

	3 Saxon Princesses, by Cranach
	Cranach sleeves, finished Backs of sleeves, showing silk lining. Black Velveteen and gold patterned silk brocade is mounted on a calico internlining, and lined with yellow silk. Both pieces have two rows of slashed velveteen at the top and one at the bottom. The slashes are not lined or finished - they fray, but not overly much - an interpretation of the costly extravagance of the clothing.
	Cranach sleeves, finished, fronts

As part of my long-term Cranach gown project, I've started first steps towards a hat, following instructions by Mistress Rowan of Lochac, who visited over the summer. She sat with me, to walk through the project, and sketched out instructions on how to model the brim, create the crown, and sew the layers together (I've posted pics of her sketches below).

The goal is a hat resembling the one worn by the centre princess in this Cranach portrait.

The tricky bit, IMO, is creating the brim that isn't a full circle. This brim looks to me like two half-circles, snipped at the midpoint, to create a notch over the wearer's left eye, and possibly a matching notch behind her head.

If you use millinery wire to create the brim, it mostly wants to go in circles or ovals. How do you create the notch with a sharp edge? Unless you're using a wire that can be shaped & bent more than round-loving millinery wire. Anyone know?

The pics below show the half-brims I've cut from pizza box to test out the shape, and the shape of the cardboard brim so far.

The last pic is a propos of not much - just some trim I found at Rouleaux's moster warehouse sale today. There wasn't much in the SCA line for trim - at least, there was some that was pretty, but not to my taste. My authenticity-mavin-ness doesn't let me buy 'fun' trim anymore, or trim that I can't place as plausible woven bands.

I also bought a quantity of double-sided velvet ribbon, and a packet of narrow grosgrain ribbon (now in the wash) that will both hopefully go on my 16th c. Elizabethan doublet and gown, as guards/ornaments.