Image of the Day - Jane Seymour v2
(Crossposted from my main blog: http://www.kimiko1.com/blog/?p=229)
The past few days I've been preparing a web page to use as a landing page for all things Tudor - well, all things Henrician Tudor, for an upcoming series of workshops in my kingdom on making Henrician/Tudor garments. This included gathering images into a few Pinterest boards, collecting my patterns, figuring out which books to suggest, and more. The page will debut after our first workshop this coming Sunday.
Today while re-pinning, I came across this image, which I honestly don't recall if I'd seen it before.
I realized it really breaks the usual everything-is-perfect-and-flat-mold of Tudor women, as seen in the more popular images, like the more well known image of Jane Seymour I posted earlier. While you cannot see a cleavage line (English painters seem to gloss over those), you can see the wrinkles along her stomach area and the shadows under her bosom above.
You can clearly see that this woman is not wearing a boned undergarment for support - no corset there. Her kirtle will provide the support, with possibly an interlining layer of canvas, as is noted in warrants of the period. But it is a softer support meant to support the bosom in place, not shove the bosom up to the chin, or to cinch in the stomach into rigid and smooth perfection. I wish I had seen this image for the article I wrote, as it is an interesting visual example for this period.
Other things I also want to note are:
The past few days I've been preparing a web page to use as a landing page for all things Tudor - well, all things Henrician Tudor, for an upcoming series of workshops in my kingdom on making Henrician/Tudor garments. This included gathering images into a few Pinterest boards, collecting my patterns, figuring out which books to suggest, and more. The page will debut after our first workshop this coming Sunday.
Today while re-pinning, I came across this image, which I honestly don't recall if I'd seen it before.
I realized it really breaks the usual everything-is-perfect-and-flat-mold of Tudor women, as seen in the more popular images, like the more well known image of Jane Seymour I posted earlier. While you cannot see a cleavage line (English painters seem to gloss over those), you can see the wrinkles along her stomach area and the shadows under her bosom above.
You can clearly see that this woman is not wearing a boned undergarment for support - no corset there. Her kirtle will provide the support, with possibly an interlining layer of canvas, as is noted in warrants of the period. But it is a softer support meant to support the bosom in place, not shove the bosom up to the chin, or to cinch in the stomach into rigid and smooth perfection. I wish I had seen this image for the article I wrote, as it is an interesting visual example for this period.
Other things I also want to note are:
- She is wearing her shoulder straps that start wider in the shoulder/back area, and narrows as it comes down to the front. This is more often seen earlier in the century.
- Her turnback gown sleeves appear to be a single layer. Definitely no fur. Not sure if there is a thin lining.
- Her bonnet & frontlet, which has a flipped up veil on one side, does have a narrow edge of pearls, I think. The image is still too small to tell for sure. But the bonnet does come to her mouth level, which matches the style for the mid 1530s.
- The same bonnet's lappets appear to be cloth of gold tissue? Definitely shiny, and not a geometric pattern.
- The gown appears to be cloth of gold brocade. It is hard to see what the pattern was, but a fine fabric for a queen.