Cool Find! Zopfe and Gefrens

[mmcnealy]

So I'm rummaging around on RealOnline tonight, looking at purses/pouches and I find this image which has very little to do with that...

First we have St. Clare and St. Francis studying together, she's wearing the typical big braids, the gefrens and the pearled headband, pretty typical mid 15th century stuff.

Hl. Klara;Hl. Franziskus
Dieses Bild: 004662
Kunstwerk: Temperamalerei-Holz ; Einrichtung sakral ; Flügelaltar
Dokumentation: 1465 ; 1475 ; Bamberg ; Deutschland ; Franken ; Staatsgalerie
http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7006291.JPG

In the next scene, she's getting her hair shorn, and what do we see draped over the altar? Her pearled headdress, her false braids and the gefrens!

Check it out, it is way cool! And for some reason, the false braids are blue, still haven't figured that one out yet...

Einkleidung der Hl. Klara durch den Hl. Franziskus
Dieses Bild: 004664
Kunstwerk: Temperamalerei-Holz ; Einrichtung sakral ; Flügelaltar
Dokumentation: 1465 ; 1475 ; Bamberg ; Deutschland ; Franken ; Staatsgalerie
Anmerkungen:

http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7006294.JPG
Detail with the zopfe and gefrens
http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7006295.JPG

Comments

[ornerie.livejournal.com]

oo! Ooo! Oo!

I betcha the blue stuff isnt so much "fake braids" as a wad of material that her real hair could be braided over to give itmore volume, etc. kinda like a rat in the '40s?

I mean, you look at some of those illos and there's no way a human could have that much hair to make those braids that fat, plus they're not fat all the way 'round, just in the middle.

this would make sense given the fact that there's tie-bits associated with them. so you'd braid your real hair WITH the blue stuff, making sure the real hair covered all the blue, tie off the ends with the string...
what do you think?

[mmcnealy.livejournal.com]

Yup, I think that's how it works. [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] posted a picture of a Romanian folk costume from the early 1900's showing how they used to braid in false braids of pig skin into their hair. Also there's a leather braid from the Kempten finds which date from the 1500's, IIRC. So my educated guess is that the blue strands are stuffed leather.

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

The blue things reminds me a lot of those romanian pigtails myralea posted pictures of a year ago or so, which were used to braid in with the hair. (And was told by someone that it probably was a misunderstanding on he rpart, because of teh english meaning of the word "pigtails". As if the original text would have been in english and not either romanian or german.)
So either your hair covered them totally, or thye were partly visible under the hair.

I am also very interested in the dress, since it reminds me of this dress, that I was planning to make over a year ago.

/Eva

[mmcnealy.livejournal.com]

As soon as I posted the entry, I was reminded of the Romanian pigtails that Myra posted. Those were leather, IRRC. I'm also reminded of a find from Kempten of three padded leather rolls that were braided. Looks like I need to go digging through some things and start pulling stuff together.

You've literally changed my life with that picture

[elenanoel.livejournal.com]

That's my favorite period and the clothes I wear, and that just makes me SO happy and opens up a few more construction possibilities for me. I need to talk to you about how to use that search engine, though! I tried to find more paintings with the collared long-sleeved velvet underdress and that lovely overdress, but I couldn't use the search engine right! (Not a German speaker--I know that's inconvenient, since I'm obsessed w/ German late 15thc clothing!)
I just ended up taking your links and changing the numbers on the end to find more paintings, which gave me great pictures on my computer, but no attributions. At all. Help?
By the way, thanks again! I can't over-emphasize that you've changed my life! I'd seen the fringe (is that the "gefrens"?) with every kind of headgear under the sun, but never that headband (is that what you're calling a "zopfe"? Where did you find that term? Hooray!)--and there was your fascinating comment saying it was typical. Do you know whether this is identified w/ a specific region? (I've memorized everything I've found by the Master of the Housebook and Masters ES and BxG, and Israhel van Meckenem, and I like to pin them down to cities and regions if I can, since there's so much lovely variation in Germany and of course Alsace/Colmar/Belfort.) Thank you so much! If you want to chat w/ me privately I'm elena.noel at gmail dot com.
Thank you again!

Re: You've literally changed my life with that picture

[mmcnealy.livejournal.com]

Glad I could help!
You will probably find this tutorial I wrote on RealOnline useful
Guide to REALonine

Its unfortunate that RO doesn't have a better site layout and keep the attributions with the pictures, but that's not how they have it laid out.

The fringe is the "gefrens", the "zopfe" is the word used in Textiler Hausrat for false braids, which is what I think the blue things are. Unfortunatly, the hair style is not detailed out in RO, so I have to search for "gefrens" instead. The hairband should be called a haarkranz or a haarband, but they don't seem to have cataloged it as a seperate item.

Here's a post I did last year on the Gefrens, and its got a lot of the long sleeved dresses you are looking for.
http://mmcnealy.livejournal.com/252521.html

Also, try searching for "haengeaermel" under the Kleidung catalog, that's the word for the hanging sleeves. Also, search for "gefrens" under both the Kleidung catalog and the Materielle Objekte catalog. You'd think since its a clothing item that the search results would be the same, but they aren't, because if the clothing item isn't on a person, then its a material object.

I would love to chat with you more about this, and I'll email you at your gmail account.

wonderful picture.

[myralea.livejournal.com]

love you dear! you just reminded me what i need to make in the next few days, in order to complete the dürer dress.

/m -the pigtail girl ;)