Splendor Solis - Online!

I had long been looking for a nice clear image of the women washing the clothes scene from Splendor Solis. Textiler Hausrat has a black and white image of it, and The Tudor Tailor has a nice full sized color image of it, so I thought I was happy.

Ha! Little did I know that there were other pages with great scenes in the margins


Here is an online site with high resolution images of the 22 color plates, which makes seeing certain details a whole lot easier!
The Splendor Solis By Salomon Trismosin


Starting at plate 12 is where the figures in the margin start to get interesting. Plate 16 has a garden banquet scene with a nice golden edged Steuchlein and one of the very rare saffron yellow steuchleins too!

Plate 20 shows a room of children playing, I love the little hobby horses and the pinwheel sticks.
Plate 21 is the scene of the women washing clothes, wooo look! A black apron!

Jost Amman online

Finally, I've found an online version of Jost Amman's Book of Trades, or the Das Ständebuch from 1568.

Actually, I've found several copies of it and a couple of other things too... :D

Wikipedia Commons has the entire book, and here are the plates seperately as high resolution PNG files

Then there is a copy at the online library of the University of Koln, as part of their Digital Texts at the Inst. of Economic and Social history. They have broken it up into several smaller sized portions for easy download.

Wikipedia has a nice bio of him, and a links to several of his other works which are also online, including his Wappenbuch from 1579, which has some wonderful color pictures not only of heraldry but also of people standing next to them, and the colors are really quite bright! I love the bright pink brocade in this picture

There's also a book of colored playing cards with verses from 1588. Its nice to finally see some of these clothes in color instead of black and white line drawings. Even though its a limited color palate because of the printing process, at least it gives you an idea of what colors they thought went with what.


Have fun!