Obviously it's picking at tiny details and bad drawings (Voynich 101..), however I was looking at this image and trying to figure out what the drawer was trying to show. 
Probably not, but possibly it may point to a time and location, or exclude others (to some degree). 

The details I noted were that, the garment:
-  cuts off around the breast line, above the stomach
-  has possible stiches towards the bottom
-  has no neckline 

Other details, or "lack of"
-  There are no texture indicators on the fabric, or edges/flair outs (looks form fitting)
-  The "hair" is odd when considering the rest of the page 

From this I thought, that:
-  Maybe it is more on the male side of the guess-slider 
-  Possibly leather 
-  It may be an attempt at a hooded item, which may explain no neckline and weird hair

   

I thought this was a possibility (right side guy, from 1496) 

   

I found the "The Liripipe Hood" (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) interesting. 

   

I was interested to see if anyone has any better ideas or thoughts?

(Yesterday, 10:54 PM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Obviously it's picking at tiny details and bad drawings (Voynich 101..)

Indeed.  You mean the 12:00 nymph in the inner band of f70v1.  

In my view, the most important thing to consider when trying to interpret that page (or any illustration) is that many of the drawings were heavily retraced, retouched, and added to after the originals had faded to near invisibility.

On that page, in particular, practically nothing is left of the original drawings. Look to the left, at the 11:00 nymph on the same band.  I would guess that the top half of her left arm, that seems to curve down like a mug handle, is original.  Some later "restorer" mangled that nymph in many ways:

• He added a "robot tentacle" to hold the star, using the top outline of her left arm as the bottom outline of the "tentacle".
  
• He did not understand that the other outline of her left arm was the outline of her chest. So he added a new chest outline, flat, roughly aligned with the outline of the neck. Leaving the poor nymph with a single breast in the middle of her chest. 
  
• He got her right arm mixed with the edge of the tub.  And there went her right hand.
  
• He added lines to her belly area to make her crotch visible (even though the original artist prudely hid that part of all other nymphs inside the tubs).  Which left her with three legs. (Would that compensate for the single breast?)
  
• He added two vertical lines to the outline of the tub, making it seem to be made of thick glass.
  

So, back to the 12:00 nymph: much of what we see there was (re)drawn by the same "restorer", so...

All the best, --stolfi

If all that is true, then even so, those who did this knew of the things they drew, and the fashions they depicted. So they would be around the time of these most likely. 
So someone meant to depict what was shown. Unless obviously, it was go-goWilfrid and his pesky gadget fake manuscripts.

(Today, 12:59 AM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.those who did this knew of the things they drew, and the fashions they depicted. So they would be around the time of these most likely. So someone meant to depict what was shown.

Well, some of what we see today in the illustrations is original, and some was faithfully retraced.  But some was erroneously retraced (pareidolia is not a modern disease!) and some was deliberately added or modified without regard for the original, just for fun.

The "robot tentacle" of the nymph at 11:00 and the crown on f72v1 are almost certainly examples of the latter.  Just graffiti by one of the latest "Restorers".  Who also added characteristic "showercaps" (scalloped diadems) on many nymphs throughout the book.

The problem is that it is not easy to tell those four cases apart.  On the 12:00 nymph, is the line across her chest original, or at least retraced over the original?  Or is it a mistaken "restoration", based on a few smudges that remained from the original and/or spurious stains on the vellum?  Or is it just a fancy embellishment by the "creative Restorer"?  I can't tell...

By the way, note that the breasts and nipples of most of the clothed nymphs are clearly visible through the dress.  Is that what the original artist intended all along?  I find that hard to believe.  Maybe the original artist drew them naked first, then got an attack of prudery and dressed them.  But even that seems unlikely: why did he leave some of them naked?  Maybe he drew them dressed, and then him or some later "Restorer" added the breasts over the dresses.  I can't believe that either.  My best guess is that the originals were all naked, and the dresses are all later graffiti...

And I suspect that the originals had only one breast that was just a bump on the outline of the chest. And no nipples.  It was again a "creative Restorer" (earlier than the "tentacle" one) who added the other breast and the nipples. 

I am also unsure about the hats and more elaborate hairdos.  Some of them may be mostly original (but possibly retraced).  But I suspect that the nymphs originally had no hats, just a bit of free hair -- like most nymphs on f72v1.

All the best, --stolfi

Quote:Maybe the original artist drew them naked first, then got an attack of prudery and dressed them

I think it is just the opposite. Notice that dressed nymphs appear only at Aries and Taurus pages (f71r, f71v). These pages have their duplicates with naked nymphs (f72r1, f72r2). Surprisingly the new versions contain totally different text (which could be an argument that the text is some random, meaningless crap).

The rest of pages contain naked nymphs.

I feel that the illustrator first drew the clothed version, maybe only one sheet. Then he changed his mind and switched to naked version. He redid this one sheet and did all the rest naked.

I do think there may be some additions, for example I think there might be more men than we think who had items (usually breasts) added which cause them to be taken for women (if we lean into the "retracer" theory). But there are also other explanations which I touch on later. But, well this is a hope more than anything I guess - my hope is that whoever added things like crowns, if they were added, had some sort of reference, if only the picture in their mind of what that item looked like, then we may still place it to a time and place. As you say though, it may turn out to be a fools hope. 

- I also have no expert knowledge in any of this, so its just "vibes". Happy to be proved wrong, and I know lots don't agree at all. 

A while back I mix and matched some images to create new ones, this figure is a woman (..maybe) in the VM, however I felt like it made a more convincing man in nightwear (If I just removed the badly drawn breasts). I then thought I would add him into the night sky in his "flying dream machine" to lean into the "nightwear" impression I got, I also felt he was looking at something (rather than the more usual generic eyes) so he could peer into the tube of the (now) dream machine. This nymph is 2 to the left of the 12 o'clock on, on the same page, if you would like to see the original. 

So in a way I took on the role of the later modifier and added my own spin.. but the core elements and styles were kept intact so we might pull info from what is there (my hope).

   

The 11:00 figure I take to have the star attached to their hair, or maybe it is a long hood like "The Liripipe Hood".
The arm is now badly faded, or was always drawn lightly and the next run over the image missed it - depending on how you look at things. 

   

With the crown, for me it falls into the "whether it was original or not" previous thoughts, and I think it is more likely that whenever (/if) it was added the person was drawing from something they knew, rather than a total fabrication. So we could still do something like see when the first crowns of this style popped up and try get some information from that (back to the hope). Obviously there's a chance it throws up an exact match for much later than we expect from other details in the manuscript, but in that case we could maybe put a date on the "retracer". This exact example may not be a good one, but the thought (/hope) is more an overall "hope" that might consider many items together.   

With the "breasts/nipples through clothing" thing, for the opposite side of my drawing I removed these from my chosen nymph (in another image mash-up), as I felt it was more visually appealing to do so. Maybe the choices I took might also be true for someone else in the past doing the same sorts of things.

   

If we look above this nymph, which is actually 1 right from the original image I shared (12 o'clock on 70v), there is a very strange case of "double breasts". The line to show the area of clothing where the breasts are, has much smaller breasts with nipples drawn above. I have a couple of thoughts on "clothes with nipples" in general, maybe not so much for this exact drawing, it might just be quite a bad try.. 

For the "retracer".
- Maybe someone later thought it amusing to add breasts all over the place, there are parts also where this theory might touch on penis's too. 
- Maybe it was not for amusement, but a "bad take" on what was there
- Maybe they saw naked nymphs and just thought, well they all need them! 

For "original"
-  Maybe some of the clothing was sheer - under garments or nightwear etc possibly, we would take this as "erotic/sexy" now, but at the time it would be different. 
-  Maybe paint played a part in making this confusing in some areas. 

There is also something to be said for the skill of the drawer overall, and I have found many areas that seem totally perplexing to me that usually trying to redraw it shows me what they were trying to do (and got wrong), or sometimes other close by examples have one time where what they tried went right, but they tried again using a different pose and it all went wrong. A good example of this is arms that seem to "shoot from the hip".. 

For the example I gave originally, my hope is that the stiches (if that is what they are) may lend credibility to the breast height line being intentional, but I might not be correct.

(8 hours ago)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Notice that dressed nymphs appear only at Aries and Taurus pages (f71r, f71v). These pages have their duplicates with naked nymphs (f72r1, f72r2). ... I feel that the illustrator first drew the clothed version, maybe only one sheet. Then he changed his mind and switched to naked version. He redid this one sheet and did all the rest naked.

It could be... 

I am still quite puzzled about the order in which the VMS pages were written.  Looking at the style of the nymphs, I think it is clear that the Zodiac nymphs were drawn before the Bio ones. And, among the former, it is clear that the four diagrams from Pisces to Taurus 1 ("Light") were done before the rest.

But the order among those four pages is unclear.  Dresses, tubs, breasts, and other features do not seem to appear and disappear in a linear sequence.  

Page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (Aries 2, "Light") seems more primitive than f70v1 (Aries 1, "Dark").  Most nymphs in Aries 2 are dressed, and most (even the naked ones) have no breasts.  The few breasts could be later additions.  There are other signs...

Pisces has tubs and breasts but no dresses.  By the latter, it should be the most recent of  the four, drawn between Taurus 1 and Taurus 2  But it is the earliest one  in physical order.  If it is the indeed the earliest of the four, then it seems that the Artist tried a 30-nymph schema for Pisces because he had more space on that folio, then went for 2 x 15 schema on the smaller folios for Aries 1 and 2 and Taurus 1 and 2, then went back to 30 per sign with more compact nymphoramas and/or overflow nymphs on top.  I can't decide  ...

All the best, --stolfi

(7 hours ago)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So we could still do something like see when the first crowns of this style popped up and try get some information from that (back to the hope)

Yes, that would be worth exploring.  Has there been any historical analysis of the style of that crown?  (Page f72v1, outer nymph at 12:30)?

   

Quote:Maybe paint played a part in making this confusing in some areas.

I believe there is evidence that the paint was applied after most of the "restoration"/retracing rounds.  When the Painter ran over a figure outline with his brush, it often looks like the paint dissolved the ink and either push it aside or washed it off completely. 

All the best, --stolfi

(3 hours ago)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes, that would be worth exploring.  Has there been any historical analysis of the style of that crown?  (Page f72v1, outer nymph at 12:30)?

This would be a good subject for a systematic and thorough investigation. Although I foresee some issues with retracers  Crowns like that without the bow are even found in ancient civilizations (Persian empire). But add the bow and cross and you're looking at a different timeline...

There's this post that I remember - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . 
The post by Aga looks a good comparison to me

Nick Pelling talks about them here - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I'm not sure if there is anything very extensive