Dressed for DisplayWomen, clothing and the visual

theatre of the Renaissance

BrookeLynne SandersSpring 2014

Special thanks to Dr. Alexa Sand for her guidance and inspirationin this project. I could not have done it without you.

Literature Review

The scholarly discussion of women in the sixteenth century

is multifaceted and often varied in context. With that in mind, I

have separated my research into three strands to better

understand the cultural situation of women in the sixteenth

century: women in societal or religious roles, women in art, and

women in the realm of fashion and clothing. While these topics of

course overlap, each serves as the focus for a significant body

of recent scholarship in and of itself.

Women’s social experiences in the sixteenth century can be

broadly characterized in terms of a series of roles a woman was

supposed to hold simultaneously: virtuous wife, mother, chaste

virgin, modest widow and sexual being. In her article “Virtuous

Mode/Voluptuous Martyr: The suicide of Lucretia in Northern

Renaissance Art and its Relationship to Late Medieval Devotional

Imagery” Carol M. Schuler discusses the way women were

represented as demure in the household and yet in the same time

sexually active in the new art style developed in the early

sixteenth century.1 Schuler points out that while the images are

overtly sexual as Lucretia is depicted as nude or partially nude,

the compassion is often drawn to the depictions of the suffering

Christ popular in the same period. Both types of images share

characteristics in the way they display the agony of death and

violation in Lucretia’s case creating at the same time a familiar

image and yet introducing the concept of the nude female martyr

into popular viewing. Schuler’s interpretation of how Lucretia

transformed from a Roman discourse on chastity and virtue into a

popular vehicle for implying to women the ways in which they

could display chastity and virtue. This argument is very

compelling for several reasons. It explains the emergence of

these images when previously there had been no overtly sexual

females in art while at the same time clearly displaying the

conventional expectations of women in domestic settings.

Christa Grossinger in her book Picturing Women in Late Medieval and

1 Schuler, Carol M. “Virtuous Model/Voluptuous Martyr: The Suicide of Lucretiain Northern Renaissance Art and its Relationship to Late Medieval Devotional Imagry.”

Renaissance Art 2 illustrates the way men viewed women as a

temptation, a product of Eve’s lust, often expecting women to be

pure like the Virgin Mary and yet fulfill the sexual function of

bearing children at the same time. This viewpoint makes it

remarkably clear how multifaceted a woman had to be in terms of

social construct. This duplicity in expectations highlights men’s

interaction with the eroticized images of Lucretia and Judith

while imposing on female viewers the warning of what might happen

to a woman who pushed beyond the bounds of Christian chastity.

Women were primarily seen in the social construct of

fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe as wives or potential

wives. One way in which families took advantage of this social

expectation to use women as status symbols. Patricia Campbell

Warner discusses in detail the way in which women were decorated

by the men closest to them in a display of wealth and power. 3

Her argument is supported by the article “’Who can find a

virtuous woman?’ Married and unmarried women at the beginning of

2 Grossinger, Christa. 1997. Picturing women in late medieval and renaissance art. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Pp. 103 Campbell Warner, Patricia. “Fetters of Gold: The Jewelry of Renaissance Saxony in the Portraits of Cranach the Elder.” Dress 1990. Pp 17-27.

modern time”4 co-authored by Petty Bange, Greietje Dresen, and

Jeanne Marie Noel. The article states that a woman “was looked on

with favor as long as she had a function to fulfill.”5 However

the authors continue on to assert the change that the Protestant

Reformation had on the status of women inside and outside the

home. An obedient wife came increasingly to be viewed as a

pleasing sight to God and no longer as a potentially sinful

being. These different contexts a woman was placed into creates

a larger picture as to the treatment of women in art images as

sexual beings and propagandist materials to support the artist or

patron’s particular bias.

Images of women have been attributed four main roles:

depictions of the Virgin Mary, other biblical and canonical

heroines, depictions of sexual nudes and portraits, and women as

patrons of art. One of the most common images of women in

Renaissance art is that of the Virgin Mary. Grossinger addresses

the depictions of women as the Virgin Mary and other virgin

saints in the Catholic program of saints. Excluding the Virgin, 4 Saints and She-Devils. “Bange, Petty, Grietje Dresen, Jeanne Marie Noel. “’Who can find a virtuous woman?’ Married and unmarried women at the beginningof the modern time”. 5 Bange, Petty.pp. 24

part of the allure these women had was their martyrdom while

protecting their chastity. The model of virtuous woman was used

as an example for women in the Renaissance to follow in order to

be a good Christian wife. On the other hand as Carol Schuler

notes in her article, women in art were often depicted as sexual

nudes in an attempt to make an example of what happened to women

who were lustful or an overt temptation to men. While the story

of Lucretia is a classical tale, Lucretia joins the other chaste

martyrs, this is due to the freedom the painter or author had to

“support the author’s own agenda.”6 The suicide of Lucretia was

used as a depiction of what happened to women who were sexual

beings. By depicting what happened to temptresses, women in the

Renaissance understood the implicit value of being a chaste

Christian woman and at the same time must hold a sexual allure

through their dress and demeanor. This perpetuates the change of

fashion and style in a never-ending quest to find the sex appeal

without appearing a prostitute.

Women were also patrons of art; they commissioned Books of

Hours, devotional images and also jewelry. Ian Wardropper argues

6 Schuler. Pp. 6

that the aristocratic women had more than a whim or fancy when

commissioning jeweled adornments.7 He states that the women were

well versed in the meanings of each stone and material used and

how the combinations affected her social status. This is another

layer to add to the increasingly layered life women led. It would

be easy to imagine that women were simply pawns in the activity

of dress and public image, but the reality is that they played a

very fine line between modesty expected from nuns and women in

the monasteries and the licentious flamboyance of prostitutes.

Women were very active in a visual culture that relied on

clothing and adornments to announce their status and economic

ability while still striving to portray the virtuous lady.

Fashion and ultimately, clothing itself played a very large role

in the social theatre, not just by women but by men as well. Men

also dressed to impress, although this flamboyant nature simmered

down throughout the fires of religious turmoil and by the end of

the sixteenth century, showy displays of fashion was left to the

female realm.

7 Wardropper, Ian. "Between Art and Nature: Jewelry in the Renaissance." Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 25.2 (2000): 7-104.

The appearance of clothing in Northern Renaissance art

provides insight, albeit limited, in to the complex sphere of

clothing in the period. Extant garments from this period are

scarce, consequently most of what we understand bout clothing is

from paintings and other forms of visual representation. Part of

the difficulty in concretely defining the way clothing was

constructed and worn is due to the varied stylized elements found

in these images. Therefore, while it is clear that this

particular style was popular at the beginning of the sixteenth-

century, the artists who painted these women also inserted their

own biases. Clothing styles changed dramatically during the end

of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries. The

distinctive ‘slash and puff’ style of Germanic fashion developed

during this transition, and while it by no means the only style,

it is one of the most visible8. Heavy silk velvets and brocades

became a major staple in the textile industry and combined with

the advancements in construction techniques, the fashions grew

more complicated9. Patricia Campbell Warner discusses the social

parameters in which clothing and jewelry played an important role8 Kohler, Carl. “The History of Costume” 1963. New York. Dover Publishing.9 Kohler. 252.

in the visual culture.10 The projection of wealth by women and

the men who supported them impacted the way women were viewed by

the larger population. Jewelry also played a role often

overlooked in the visual culture as Wardropper mentions, women

were aware of the implicit meanings styles and materials

carried.11 By attending to the fashions of the day, women were

simultaneously advertising their availability as sexual beings -

lovers, wives, mistresses- and at the same time striving to

adhere to the model of a virtuous chaste woman. The fine line

between overtly sexual and demure virgin is displayed in the way

women dressed and acted.12

Finally, to add another layer to this already complex

arrangement, I have created a gown as pictured in the images by

Cranach and several other artists of the time. By reconstructing

the gown, it alters the perception of a 2-dimensional image into

a 3-dimensional object and the difficulties of copying straight

from the image are immense. This reconstruction illuminates the

artists’ tendency to smooth over or embellish the gown in a way

10 Warner. Pp 2011 Wardropper. Pp 1012 Schuler. Pp 8

that is impractical in application even though it looks good in a

painting. Not only does this provide a physical representation of

what we see in Northern Renaissance paintings, but it also gives

a better perspective on how much these dresses changed the way

women acted in the social theatre. A woman would not wear this

dress for an everyday occasion, rather it was a marker of her

wealth and status and would definitely be worn only by women of

the courts, as they do require the assistance of another to put

on. The social structure of the time enabled these elaborate

styles to emerge and at the same time remain restricted to a

certain range of women who could wear them.

Dressed for Display:

Women, Clothing and the Visual Theatre of the Renaissance

A woman with a pearl encrusted gold cap stands against a

dark background with a small window in the corner. A woman in a

similar cap and a large feather bedecked hat stands against an

equally dark background once again with a window in the corner.

Three women, in similar dresses and feathered hats stand side by

side in a portrait of the three sisters Sibylla, Emilia, and

Sidonia. Paintings such as these dominate the arena of sixteenth-

century German paintings. Mainly painted by Lucas Cranach the

Elder and his workshop in the Saxony region of Germany, these

women provide a small insight into the fashions and gender

expectations that changed dramatically after the Protestant

Revolution. By recreating a gown similar to those worn by the

women in the paintings I aim to better understand the

relationship between clothing, women and the way society expected

women to behave in the Renaissance.

Lucas Cranach the Elder painted in the Saxony court of

Friedrich III after 1504. Within the next twenty-five years, he

painted some of his most memorable allegorical paintings and

portraits. Most notable are the allegories of Judith, Salome, and

Lucretia. By painting biblical and classical heroines in a

popular court style, he enabled the portraits to interact with

the viewers in a way that was previously unknown in the art

world. Not only did he present a new way of interaction between

viewer and painter, but he also allowed a personal interpretation

of what women’s expectations in the social realm were through the

depictions of these heroines.13

13 Schuler. Pp 10

Allegorical paintings in Renaissance Germany took an entire

new turn after the Protestant Reformation in 1517. Evolving from

Late Medieval devotional imagery, allegorical paintings like that

of the unlucky Lucretia became

images of personal devotion and

meditation as well as propagandist

fodder for those extolling the

virtues of women. For women, these

paintings illustrated the roles they

were expected to perform. Expected

to not only fulfill the expected

roles of wife and mother, women

found themselves expected to be virtuous like the Virgin Mary,

and yet at the same time sexually attractive like Eve.14 During

the Late Medieval period images of the Virgin Mary and other

virgin martyrs of the Catholic faith allowed women to explore

their own religious affiliations with the ideal woman, one who

performs the ultimate sacrifice to protect her chastity.15-16

14 Bange pp 1515 Bange pp 1616 Schuler pp 15

These portrayals of women’s roles explored in the paintings by

Lucas Cranach and his workshop provide us not only with the

knowledge of the ever-changing gender roles but also how women

expected these roles to be explained. By depicting biblical and

classical heroines like Judith, Salome, and Lucretia in

contemporary fashions, Cranach drew parallels to the ways in

which courtly women behaved and the way their religious

counterparts reacted through canvases.17

Lucretia, though not a biblical

character, came to prominence after the

Reformation as a shining example of what

a woman

should not

do and what happened to her if she did

not conform to the expected societal

norms. A story from classical antiquity,

Lucretia was raped by Sextus Tarquin and

then committed suicide, “choosing death over dishonor, despite

her innocence, [Lucretia] served well a culture that prized

17 Grossinger. Pp 20

Figure 1 Lucretia. Lucas Cranach the Elder. Museum ofFine Arts Houston 1529

Figure 2 Salome. Lucas Cranach the Elder. 1530. Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Hungary.

female chastity over all other attributes.”18 Even during the

Late Medieval period, writers used Lucretia as an example of a

woman who was filled with sexual temptation and power which then

evolved into a new genre of allegorical paintings after the

Reformation.19 As in Figure 1, Lucretia’s nakedness not only

serves to emphasize the sensual nature of the painting, but also

to reference as Bernadine Barnes explains it “the seductiveness

that led to her downfall.”20 In Barnes’ explanation lies the

heart of the matter. Lucretia’s nakedness, aided by her anguished

facial expressions, illustrates the consequences of a woman whose

seductive nature leads towards a downfall and yet at the same

time heightens the contrast between the story, wherein she was

most vulnerable when alone, and the painting where Lucretia

displays a vulnerability under the gaze of the viewer.21 Lucretia

by the end of the Renaissance appeared as the example of how

women should not behave while her fellow heroines often displayed

examples of the valiant Renaissance woman.22

18 Schuler pp. 619 Schuler 720 Barnes, Bernadine. “Heroines and Worthy Women: Eva/Ave: woman in Renaissance and Baroque Prints, ex. Cat., Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1990. Pp 3121 Schuler pp 1322 Bange

The story of Judith and Holofernes as well as Salome found

themselves the subject of many paintings created by the workshop

of Lucas Cranach the Elder. While varied in minor stylistic

differences, many of the paintings are painfully similar. Without

the study of iconology as explained by Erwin Panofsky, discerning

one from the other without the use of titles is nearly

impossible. Panofsky explains that the addition of attributes

like swords change drastically the way that the painting can be

interpreted and read by a man or woman in

the Renaissance. Without the sword, the

woman in Figure 2 is seen as Salome, a

slightly less valiant woman of Renaissance

virtue than Judith (Figure 3). 23 While

these changes may seem inconsequential to

us in the modern world, during the

Renaissance, men and women interacted with

the paintings according to the attributes that identified them.24

Judith, as depicted by Cranach, becomes the epitome of a valiant

23 Panofsky, Erwin. "Iconography and Iconology: An Introduction to the Study of Renaissance Art." Meaning in the visual arts: papers in and on art history. 1st ed. GardenCity, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955. Pp 3724 Panosfky pp. 37

Figure 3Judith with the Head of Holofernes. Lucas Cranach the Elder.1530 Jagdschloss Grunewald (Grunewald hunting lodge)

women and the personification of the virtue Justice. With sword

in hand, she cut off the head of Holofernes after he succumbs to

the sexual temptation she presents him. Thus she not only became

an embodiment of Justice and virtue as explained by Panofsky, but

she also illustrates the way in which women could present a

sexual nature without being deviant or a seductress as seen in

medieval imagery.

Cranach’s paintings illuminate the ways in which women were

seen as goodly wives, chaste virgins, and sexual beings without

the fear of being a sexual deviant previously feared in the

medieval period.25 They also illuminate the current fashions of

the German province of Saxony and the surrounding areas. A

painting of the three princess of Saxony, Sibylla, Emilia, and

Sidonia, shows them wearing very similar styled gowns to those

worn by Judith and Salome. (Figure 4) These women, although not

the biblical heroines, still embody the same virtues and

expectations by wearing similar gowns. The sisters, as unmarried

women in newly Protestant Germany, were seen to be chaste virgins

25 Bange. Pp 17

until the time they were married.26 More important however the

implicit understanding of these women and how their physical

appearance affected their interactions in society. The

distinctive “slash and puff” style of German clothing developed

at the end of the fifteenth-century and beginning of the

sixteenth-century.27 By placing strategic slashes in garments,

particularly sleeves

and bodices, men and

women could display

small amounts of

expensive silks and

brocades without

having to line the

entire garment with

costly material. 28 By simply viewing the paintings seen here,

it is clear that the garments, made of velvet and brocades, were

available only to those of extravagant means and far-reaching

trade connections. Far more than simply a fleeting whim of silly

26 Bange. Pp 1927 Kohler. Pp 25528 Kohler. Pp 252

Figure 4the three princesses of Saxony, Sibylla, Emilia and Sidonia (c. 1535), oil on panel

women, clothing and jewelry fashions implied much more about a

woman’s status, educational background and political and social

motivations.29 Gemstones in particular order spelled out messages

of truthfulness, fidelity, and Christian virtues while displaying

the woman’s wealth and status in society.30 Of course these women

did not act in a vacuum without the influence and aid of men in

these visual displays of wealth and power. Often, these women

were decorated more as a display of the man’s wealth than that of

the woman herself.31 That is not to say that women were passive

actors in this visual arena, but rather they shaped the way the

jewelry and clothing looked though requests that illustrated

their education in the symbols of jewelry.32

While understanding the images as first person accounts of

what clothing and fashion looked like during the sixteenth

century, one must take each one with a grain of salt. Much like

any rendition of painting or piece of writing done today, the

artist’s bias affects the presentation of the overall piece.

Despite providing the largest selection of paintings with this 29 Wardropper. Pp 1230 Campbell Warner. Pp 2031 Campbell Warner. Pp. 2632 Wardropper pp 9

particular style, artists other than Lucas Cranach the Elder did

paint similar gowns and fashions, many of these are woodcuts and

incredibly difficult to pick apart in minute detail. Cranach’s

attention to small detail enables us as art historians to better

look at how the sixteenth century presented itself, while at the

same time providing little cross examination through other

artists. Quite common among those who aim to recreate these gowns

is the argument that Cranach had each model wear the same dress

for all of his paintings. I find this to be incorrect, as there

is plenty of evidence of these gowns as well as enough variation

between each painting that renders the possibility of only one

gown impossible. One sketch by Hans Holbein illustrates a gown

very similar to those painted by Cranach and yet at the same

time, causes the differences between them stand out vividly.

(Figure 5) The woman wears the same banded sleeves with loose

elbow sections, a detail band around the bust, and the off the

shoulder neckline seen in previous figures. One significant

difference lies in the high necked, heavily pleated undergarment

she wears, despite the elaborate gold embroidery. These similar

images lead me to believe that these garments were in fact worn

by high status women during the first half of the sixteenth

century and that the understanding of the garment is essential to

better understanding these images.

As a part of my research, I

participated in some experimental

archaeology. By this I mean to say, I

recreated a gown as depicted by Lucas

Cranach the Elder. In order to

recreate a gown this complicated, I

did receive an Undergraduate Research

and Creative Opportunities Grant from

Utah State University. This grant paid for eight yards of green

silk velvet, six yards of silk gauze, six yards of figured silk,

five yards of heavy linen, six yards of handkerchief linen, a

yard of gold silk taffeta, a yard of red silk taffeta, six yards

of velvet ribbon, feathers, and numerous beads and findings for

the jewelry. As there extant garments from this period are rare

and detailed accounts written by those who wore these garments

are almost non-existent, most of the experimental side of things

came from the creating the pattern based on the images painted by

Figure 5 Holbein the Younger, Hans. Portrait of Anna Meyer Black and coloured chalks, c.1526

Cranach.33 While he included many small details in terms of

adornment, he often neglected any sort of indication of how the

garment could have been constructed. As such, most of my

construction methods can only be deemed plausible at best until

proven otherwise.

The mechanics of making a garment in the Renaissance changed

very little from the Late Medieval period. Clothing was still

lined with linen and often made up of interchangeable parts. In

this case, I have chosen, after many examples of Lucretia like in

Figure 1 that the gown was made of all one piece. The sleeves,

voluminous under gown and skirt were sewn together with the front

bodice piece left to form a flap to be drawn up and pinned.

Pinning sleeves and other parts of one’s clothing was a generally

accepted form of using interchangeable parts. Pinned on sleeves

can be seen in many Books of Hours and quite extensively

throughout images of the Italian Renaissance, therefore it is

likely that women in Germany often did the same thing. Laid gold

work on the bodice part, known elusively as a brustfleck or 33 Ulinka Rublek did write a book about and created a garment from a sixteenthcentury gentleman by the name of Matthaus Schwarz who chronicled many of his clothing articles through painting as well as personal narration. See Dressing Up: Cultural Identity in Renaissance Europe.

plastron, accompanied by pearls commonly decorated these

garments, (See Figures 2 & 4) in varying degrees of complexity.34

I chose to follow the pattern on the silk, as floral motifs were

common and often used.35 The skirts are formed in rolled pleats

reminiscent of the large organ pleats seen in the Late Medieval

Houppelande and then stitched to the bodice.36 Gold silk guards

or strips of contrasting fabric placed at strategic intervals

along the length of the skirt not only break up the use of the

velvet which saves materials and cost, but also provides visual

interest in a gown that could unfortunately be very boring

without contrast.37 The paned sleeves, one of the hallmarks of

this distinctive style were created in one piece, as seen in

Figure 1, with the under sleeves and gold bands attached to each

other before I attached the velvet sleeve parts to the gold

bands. Bell shaped sleeve cuffs, as seen in many of the images,

though attractive in painting, leave very little opportunity to

use one’s hand for little more than small embroidery and hand

tasks. Furthermore, a velvet gown would not have been worn 34 Zander-Seidel, Textiler Hausrat, Kleidung und textilien von Nurnberg, 1500-1650. Translated by Kathrine Barich. Pp. 149-15035 Kohler. Pp 252.36 Kohler. Pp 252.37 Kohler. Pp 255.

anywhere other than the court, as velvet is difficult to clean

even in modern circumstances. Finally, a gold silk cap

(goldhaube) liberally beaded with pearls contains a woman’s hair

and provides the sense, regardless of the décolletage, of some

modesty when paired with a feather bedecked red silk hat or

tellerbaret. (Figure 6)

By recreating this particular style of garment, it becomes

clear where Cranach took artistic

liberties and where he stayed true to

the physical reality. Low shoulder

seams near the joint of the shoulder

have very little chance of staying

there when attached to a heavy sleeve

without some sort of support.

Physically, the only way to keep the frontal neckline the same is

to have the back run straight across, leaving it high in the back

and low in the front. While the décolletage was on display, the

back of a woman’s neck would be mostly covered, providing some

semblance of modesty. While impossible to exactly mimic each tiny

construction detail, the creation of this particular garment

allows us to further understand the fashions of the Renaissance

and the women who wore them.

The women who wore these elaborate gowns played a part in

the exuberant visual theatre of Renaissance Germany. During a

time where physically appearances counted for more than just a

split second judgment, but rather a deeper communication of

status and rank, women and the men who painted them on canvases

communicated through their clothing and jeweled accessories in a

way we are only beginning to understand. Women were not just

pawns on chessboards, but active players in this deeply religious

game of politics and social expectations.

Works Cited

Bange, Petty, Grietje Dresen, Jeanne Marie Noel. Saints and She-Devils.

“’Who can find a virtuous woman?’ Married and unmarried women at the

beginning of the modern time”.

Barnes, Bernadine. “Heroines and Worthy Women: Eva/Ave: woman in Renaissance

and Baroque Prints, ex. Cat., Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1990,

29-73

Campbell Warner, Patricia. “Fetters of Gold: The Jewelry of

Renaissance Saxony in the Portraits of Cranach the Elder.” Dress

1990. Pp 17-27.

Grossinger, Christa. 1997. Picturing women in late medieval and

renaissance art. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Kohler, Carl. “The History of Costume” 1963. New York. Dover

Publishing.

Panofsky, Erwin. "Iconography and Iconology: An Introduction to

the Study of Renaissance Art." Meaning in the visual arts: papers in and on art

history. 1st ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955.

Schuler, Carol M. “Virtuous Model/Voluptuous Martyr: The

Suicide of Lucretia in Northern Renaissance Art and its

Relationship to Late Medieval Devotional Imagery,” in Saints, Sinners,

and Sisters: Gender in Northern Art in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Jane

Carroll, Alison Stewart (Ashgate, 2003), 7-25.

Wardropper, Ian. "Between Art and Nature: Jewelry in the

Renaissance." Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 25.2 (2000): 7-104.

Zander-Seidel, Textiler Hausrat, Kleidung und textilien von Nurnberg, 1500-1650.

Translated by Kathrine Barich. Pp. 149-150