[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: VMs: RE: Re: further ramblings [was: VMS lookalikes]

Hi everyone,

At 08:51 01/02/2004 -0500, John Grove wrote:
Hairstyles may be one area where he had no difficulty drawing - the pharma jars are pretty detailed as well. I think when the artist in him wanted to, he put a little more effort into the drawing - but on pages that were filled with the same thing over and over (nymphs in zodiacs), he would find it a little tedious working - this might also be a fairly lame excuse for the lack of barrels after the first couple of months...

I'd particularly point to the decoration on the zodiac section's maiolica albarelli (barrels) as dating evidence. These followed a specific development route through the fifteenth century as the technology for colouring and firing them improved. I've argued on-list that the kind of patterns depicted on the ones in the VMs points to a mid-1400s dating, and probably closer to 1460-1470 than to either end of the century.

You can also look at what the decoration on the glassware in the pharma section: from the examples I saw in the V&A, I believe that this depicts a piece of Murano glassware from the mid-fifteenth century.

On the subject of the hairstyles, don't forget Julie Porter's opinion (from 14 Aug 1998):- 
Based on the hairstyles of the nyphs. I did a stint at the ren-fair here
for about 10 years. There is nothing that gives a decade away more than the
hair. The early dates are is the ms is mainstream, the latter if the ms is
provintial. I have not done a lot of study on the era. (My main intrest are
the time from 1770 to 1870 with the emphasis on the mid point late 30s
early 40s, which is where the real progress in mechanics were made, but
then I digress, see Charles Dicken's for more details).
What the costumer does have to work with are paintings and drawings
attributed to a given era. Many of my books cover wide ranges of times.
Back when I joined the list, I was asked this so I took some time and
scanned through my copy of petersen and my costume books. Granted much of
what is recorded is upper class so if things are provintal they may relate
to an earlier date than the mss.

At one point, I also briefly corresponded with Geoffrey Munn (an expert on the history of tiaras), but I decided (unilaterally) that the quality of the VMs images we had was too poor to make strong identification likely. However, if we do get close-ups of some images at some point, I'd definitely discuss those with him.

Finally... as John says, the pages were definitely bound out of order: but, interestingly, I haven't seen any 'mirrored smudges' (paint bleed-across on facing pages) which suggest that the pages were in the correct order when they were overpainted. It seems as though they may have been misbound from the start - either deliberately or accidentally. If deliberately, that might be yet another layer of encryption to figure out. :-o

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling..... 


______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying:
unsubscribe vms-list