Historical Fashion - Tumblr Posts - Page 2
Wedding Ensemble
1988
United Kingdom
V&A
Skating Cape
1898-1899
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Evening Dress
1912-1914
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Court dress of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, 1890’s
From the State Hermitage Museum
Dress worn by comtesse Greffulhe, née Élisabeth de Caraman-Chimay, designed by Charles Frederick Worth, 1896
ROSE BROCADED SATIN DINNER DRESS, c. 1892
The Color of Armor
The ever present image of the knight in popular imagination is the mounted warrior in shining armor. If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you may know that I'm fond of taking popular misconceptions of the middle ages and dashing them to the ground, however you can rest assured that this particular trope isn't inaccurate. Not entirely.
But what color was armor? We certainly have innumerable artifacts
(Milan, ca. 1400, KHM)
and period depictions of fighting men wearing brilliant polished steel,
(France, 1350-1355, Works of Guillaume de Machaut)
more than enough to say for certain that people in the middle ages did wear polished steel on the field of battle, however this wasn't the only color represented.
Delving into the manuscripts and looking at extant pieces, we see a wealth of colors available, from bluing
(Augsburg, before 1560, KHM)
to russeting
(Milan, 1495, KHM)
to blackening.
(Dutch, 1490-1495, KHM)
In manuscripts, russeting
(France, 1350, Roman de la Rose)
and blackening
(Vienna, 1448, Bibelparaphrase)
seem to be particularly prevalent.
However, one must be cautious when dealing with manuscripts. In particular, there was a convention in illuminated manuscripts of using silver leaf to make metallic weapons pop and shine brightly. Given time however, this silver will tarnish, and turn black, giving the appearance of black armor to what was originally meant to be bright and shiny, as illustrated below.
(France, 1350-1360, Roman de la Rose)
It is often easy to distinguish if this is the case if the weapons in the scene also appear black, or if the black armor appears smudged and blurry, both as in the above image.
Gilding is another particularly popular style of armor decoration, most often used as a form of accent to white or black armor in the middle ages.
(Hagenau, 1443-1446, Parzival)
Part 1/2
Annika Caswell a student from the Wimbledon School of Art wardrobe department, dressed as Catherine Parr, next to her portrait attributed to Master John, c. 1545 in the National Portrait Gallery, London. * The students are recreating portraits dating from the Tudor period to the 19th century which have been inspiration for their lavish costumes . (Photo by Rebecca Naden - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images)