Koen, I think if you look for wide sleeves with tight wrists, you will find comparative examples anywhere that the weather or climate is cold.
The style was first adopted in Europe during the 'mini-ice age' as people needed to wear more bulky underclothing and much more fur. The baggy sleeve holds more warmth; the tight wrist stops it escaping.
This means that the style itself is not unique to western costume, though compatible with early fifteenth century custom and doubtless acceptable - more or less - to the persons who copied the material now in Beinecke MS 408.
Just at random I looked for hunting costume in the colder north and turned up this (modern) version of the traditional Tibetans'.
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It's just an illustration of the scientific principle that comparable problems produce comparable solutions. I'm not arguing that the MS was made outside Europe - though it could have been - but only that you cannot pin-point a date of first composition by this means. Consider all the points at which these figures differ from the usual sort of western Christian drawings of people. The proportion of head to neck to torso for example, or the combination of garments set on a single figure.
For what it's worth, I think the month-centre figures in our present ms were copied from fourteenth-century precedents, with 'updating' done only to remove or fix details which would strike a fifteenth-century westerner as odd or objectionable. But that's just my conclusion from my own work, and you are welcome to ignore it.
Diane: yeah but if we want to know who physically drew these figures, it makes sense to look for direct parallels rather than possible ancestors - that's a different exercise. Would you say that the images in their current form are
not influenced by what is apparently called "international gothic" style?
Nablator: yes, I think you are right about the later style: puffy overall, with broad shoulders and slits in the sleeve..
About the 616 Febus: see here You are not allowed to view links.
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Interestingly, the work I linked above connects this MS to the "Bedford trend", a number of stylistically similar MSS. It is clear that the Bedford Hours should also be in our list, see the guys bottom right (probably symbolizing nobility?) You are not allowed to view links.
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The supposed Bedford Master is a figure I'll keep in mind You are not allowed to view links.
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"One possible candidate for the identity of the Bedford Master is "Haincelin of Hagenau" in Alsace, who was recorded in Paris between 1403 and 1424"
Aquila tower frescos, North Italy, 1400 ca., You are not allowed to view links.
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There's a mural in the church in Verneuil, dated "15th century". You are not allowed to view links.
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I haven't been able to find a more precise date, maybe it can be found in French sources?
There's also an interesting fresco in Trentino: You are not allowed to view links.
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I'm not sure if the sleeves are baggy enough (probably they are) but the style is much closer to the VM. If anyone could find a more precise date for these, it would also be useful.
Diane, we are not looking for baggy sleeves.
We are looking for baggy sleeves in tunics similar to those worn by the VMS bowman and the man in the VMS Gemini couple. That narrows the field quite considerably and they are not as common as one might think.
I've been looking for years and have found that this particular combination (wide at the elbows and narrow at the wrists, and not too wide at the shoulder, one layer (not double-layer) AND, bonus points if there is a long stocking cap, extra-bonus points if the boots have laces).
It is not the majority representation. That's why it is worth searching. If it were the most common tunic, it wouldn't tell us much.
(05-10-2018, 10:08 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
There's also an interesting fresco in Trentino: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
I'm not sure if the sleeves are baggy enough (probably they are) but the style is much closer to the VM. If anyone could find a more precise date for these, it would also be useful.
The Trentino mural is important because the Trentino manuscript also has numerous similar tunics AND there were some herbal manuscripts that were created there, plus it's a multicultural town where medieval scholars liked to stop while traveling the passes. Trentino is on my radar as a "place of interest".
This is very detailed and gives the impression of being a portrait, quite accurate, and it's one of the less common images of this kind of tunic worn by a child (note also the reasonably simple neckband):
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In the same region (Trentino) there is Castle Runkelstein (Bolzano) with baggy sleeves in several frescos. Haven't found out a precise date yet, apart from a vague "14th-15th century".
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Cotton MS Nero A X/2, the Gawain MS, has several illustrations with baggy sleeves. The miniatures were added 1400-1410.
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And there are a few unambiguous examples of "bag pipes" in the Vienna Tacuinum Sanitatis:
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Made somewhere in North Italy (Verona?) 1380-1399, making it the earliest somewhat precisely dated example in the thread so far.
I think the Veneto version of the Tacuinum Sanitatis is the source for the green tunic with the very pointy elbows and orange cuffs. The Rhineland Tacuinum, if I remember correctly, and many of those in the Paris version have sleeves that are narrower at the elbow.
Harley 334 (very "blousy" elbows)
Harley 2322 has many.
Harley 4431
Royal 2A XVI
Royal MS 45
Pal Germ 149
Pal Germ 324 (slightly baggy elbow)
Pal Germ 471
Pal Germ 794 is not quite as baggy, but he is wearing a sock hat.
Pal Lat 961
Pal Lat 1806
Reg Lat 1290
The boar-shield couple is from Ebersperg.
BNF 9333
BNF Français 9342 (slightly baggy elbows, but not distinctly so)
BL Add 11575
Trinity R 15 21 has quite a few tunics with baggy sleeves, tight at the wrist, but the costumes are very ornate.
Trinity 0 2 48 isn't very well drawn, but the archer MIGHT have baggy elbows.
A Fra Angelico painting of farm workers has baggy elbows and a sock cap.
The Golf Book of Hours (at the bottom of August)
Vindobonensis 1390
Van Eyck painting RolinMadonna c. 1435
Eschewynge bagpipe player
Mazarine Liber Floridus
Houghton Typ 127
Liber Precum Latin 1405 (bottom)
There's a Loire woolworkers tapestry with a good tunic but... it's a double-layer sleeve.
Plur 73 (archer on horseback)
Laufenberg (musician) c. 1440 slightly baggier at elbow, but not distinctively so
NYPL ma 104 (mostly narrow sleeves, but a couple are a bit baggier at the elbow)
Cotton Nero (axe man with very baggy elbows)
Egerton 4431
Nuremberg antichrist woodblock (early printed book) One has a long sock hat, although the tunic is longer than most.
Ellesmere Chaucer
Cod. Sang 636 (slightly baggy elbow)
Dieboldt Schiller drawing of axe man (the kind who chops heads off)
Morgan S.7
1414 Pauper's bible (baggy sleeves and sock hat on the other guy, uncolored drawing)
Dresd.A.49
I guess I have a lot of them, but the ones on the map are the ones that come closest to the VMS tunics and the ones above are either on the map or were the closest ones to those that made it to the map.
I'm blurry-eyed, it's almost 7:30 am and I haven't slept yet, so if you don't mind, I'll sleep.