Here is another portrait of Richard Sackville (by Isaac Oliver) in which he is wearing really cool breeches with the sun, moon and stars all over the fabric. Unfortunately it’s small so you can’t see the details, but I still love that fabric! He’s also got his full suit of armor and helmet on display.
It’s strange that the armor is lying in a haphazard pile in the corner. Usually in portraits like that where the armor is on display but not actually fully on the subject, the armor’s components will be neatly arranged around him. I’ve never seen anything like that painting. Also, the blue velvet drapes in the background look unsettlingly like a dirty tarp.
By the way, the grandfather of the Sackville brothers, Thomas Sackville, First Earl of Dorset, in addition to being a statesman, was a poet and playwright who pioneered the use of the blank verse. He was the co-author of Gorboduc. He also had a fantastic suit of blued and gilded armor, which survives to this day.
Nice! As a person who is into textiles, loves costumes and sews, these paintings raise a lot of questions for me. Like, the fabrics - are they brocades, with the pattern woven in, or are they embroidered by hand? What type of lace is used on their collars and cuffs (as in, what lacemaking method is used there?) What are those shoe pom-poms made of, and how long did that fad last?
Christian’s armor is very cool. I guess I didn’t realize they had guns like that in 1620.
Speaking of costumes, I like to study women’s Renaissance-era costumes, and bought this book: Patterns of Fashion: The Cut and Construction of Clothes for Men and Women C1560-1620 by Janet Arnold. The author actually examines surviving clothing from this time period and drafts exact patterns and writes about every detail of the construction. It’s really interesting.
Also by Janet Arnold is Patterns of Fashion 1: 1660-1860 and Patterns of Fashion 4: The Cut and Construction of Linen Shirts, Smocks, Neckwear, Headwear and Accessories for Men and Women C. 1540-1660.
ETA: Also saw this book on Amazon Tudor Tailor: reconstructing sixteenth- century dress. If I had more time, money and patience, I would make reproduction costumes all day and sell them at Renn Faires!
Yes, I would love it if these styles came back. At the very least it would be nice if there were some tracksuits or velour jackets or other items that incorporated design motifs from the kind of clothes in these portraits, resembling them in aesthetic if not in structure. FILA should make a limited-edition Earl of Dorset velour tracksuit.
Question: Those look like tights, did they have stretchy fabric in those days?
I was JUST thinking about that. Stretchy fibers (like elastic and spandex) were not invented until the last 100 years, I think. I do know (since I am a knitter) that they wore hand-knitted stockings during this time period, and have seen examples of original ladies stockings (like thin socks that reach to your thighs). But they were only as “elastic” as the knitting would make them, and were usually made of wool. And it would seem hard to hand-knit really thin “tights” out of really fine yarns, and have them be stretchy enough. So I do wonder exactly how their tights were made and how similar they are to today’s tights which are thin, stretchy and very form-fitting. Looks like some googling is in order…
Sorry, that should have been a reply to the poster who couldn’t stop laughing at the portrait. I agree with you, I think these old kings and courtiers look great.
Here are some more you might like, although I am sure you have already seen them! I have been surfing around on Wiki for the past hour looking at portraits and clothing!!
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, c. 1564
Peter Saltonstall 1610 I love the leaf motif on this fabric! p.s. he’s really cute!
I look at pictures of us and laugh in the present. I’m an equal-opportunities laugher.
Just to add to this, Sir Roy Strong has pointed out, in his Tudor and Jacobean Portraits (1969), that all these Henry IV paintings derive from an engraving of Charles VI of France published in Cronique abrégé des rois de France (1555). His explanation is the same as the one I suggested, i.e. the need to fill in the gaps in late-sixteenth century sets of English kings.
The main difference in the hat is that Charles VI’s has an indented fringe rather than the far more improbable row of pearls. This however simply moves the issue one stage back - was the mid-sixteenth century French engraver any more accurate in showing the rest of the details?
They’re almost certainly knitted silk.
Agreed, it’s a red rose to show he is the first Lancastrian King. The interesting thing is he is not holding it in the other version of the portraitin the National Portrait Gallery (the one with the pointy moustaches **BMax **linked to).
Just shows, whether it is based on a lost original or the whole picture was “invented”, the late 16th century artists were using their imagination!
EDIT: Thanks **APB **for making the link to the original of Charles VI of France. It never did look like an English 15th century King and certainly nothing like the efigyin Canterbury cathedral.
I have to admit, I don’t really like much historic men’s clothing before the late 18th century, when gentlemen of a certain station would dress like this: http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/images/2003/constitution_signing.jpg
Were many of these guys gay?
While their taste is not mine, it certainly seems to be spectactularly and disproportionately stylish compared to the blue-jean equivalent of the time.
The notion of “flamboyantly-dressed = gay” is completely a modern day concept. That was just the fashion back then among the upper classes. Probably some of them were gay just like some people are gay now, but there was no correlation between the clothing and the sexual orientation the way there is now. What do you mean by the “blue jean equivalent” of the time? Back then, your clothes reflected your social status. There was no such thing as an outfit that was universally worn like blue jeans among all classes.
Fabrics cut on the bias can be fairly stretchy. I’d have to see if there are seams or not, to know if it’s bias fabric or knitted. Remember, the first knitting machine was presented to Elizabeth. She turned down giving the patent.
Oh, and it’s definitely a chaperone. I might be the first person to post here who has one - mine’s fancier than Henry’s though, with a dagged liripipe and reversible velvet hood.
?! How do you have one? Do you dress up in those outfits for re-enactment type things or do you just wear it for the hell of it?
I’m in the SCA, and one of my two personae covers that time period, so it’s chaperone and houpelande for me. The other is Elizabethan, so I have pluderhosen, and doublet too. Velvet. Oh, and standing ruffed shirt (think a young Robert Dudley).
I used to do some costuming for the SCA. IIRC, the fashion for men at the time was in fact to wear their jackets sideways over one shoulder. I guess it makes as much sense as wearing shoelaces untied and your crotch down to your knees with 8" of tighty-whities showing.
I think the Henry IV portrait shows one of the numerous variations of chaperon. Simplicity of style made up for by the ornate decoration.
For a great visual aide as to why generations of incestuous marriages might not be a good idea, check out the portrait of King Carlos IIof Spain. So inbred that he was his own first cousin, he was said to give off a horrible stench due to the many illnesses that affected his internal organs. He died young and without issue.
I love the vanity portraits of Elizabeth I. Check out the low bust line and perky bosoms in this portrait done from life and said to be a remarkable likeness; not bad for a 67 year old long before support bras and plastic surgery and after bouts with many illnesses. (Of course the fact she had never “given suck” to a baby probably would have made her breasts a bit better in condition than those belonging to much younger women who were mothers of many children, but still I like the phrase “anatomically improbable” used by a Victorian art historian.)
A couple of portrait artists had done likenesses of Her Majesty that were probably really realistic, and she had expressed her displeasure. No beheadings or prisons, but they basically didn’t work “the big room” again and ended up as whatever the 16th century equivalent of sidewalk artists doing sketches of tourists in the French Quarter would have been.)
This is one of the most famous and historically significant of the Tudor era portraits- Holbein’s Anne of Cleves. Perhaps Holbein liked her or perhaps he was trying to be as pleasing as possible in accentuating positive/eliminating negative features, or perhaps she had a rough voyage to England, but supposedly she looked almost nothing like this and more like this, causing Henry VIII’s famous comment “I like her… not”. She was also extremely shy, uneducated, unrefined, did not know how to dance (Henry VIII’s favorite recreation), and though virginity was a desired thing in a royal consort she was apparently “innocent” to the point of stupidity (she thought she was pregnant because the king had kissed her goodnight).
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Knowing how portrait artists tended to romanticize their royal subjects, it makes you wonder what Henry VIII really looked like in 1540.
I love the portraits of the Innsbruck family with hypertrichosis, though I can only find the little girlwith a quick google.
