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Portraits

Research Techniques for Clothing Design

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Get the Largest Image You Can Find

HD images at museums.

Contact the museum directly

Commercial sites selling and auctioning art

Artstor (if a student or library has access)

Online web albums of personal photos

Alternative methods

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The better your starting image. . .

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The better your close ups for details

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Where is it from?

  • Conventions of portraiture of place
  • Religious rules
  • Regional differences
  • Traditional styles

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  • Politics informing the dress
  • Economic factors
  • Propaganda

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Icons

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Persian Miniatures

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1530 Lucas Cranach the Elder

Portrait of a Young Woman

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1530 Parmaganino

Antea

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1530 Jan Gossaert

A Young Princess (Dorothea of Denmark)

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1530 Joos Van Cleeve

Eleanora Queen of France

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When is it from?

  • Check basic silhouette
  • Compare against other close decades
  • Major wars?
  • Trading partners
  • Recent marriages
  • Other trends

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Who is the painter?

  • Are they painting in their home country?
  • Are they synonymous with a movement?
  • What are the hallmarks of their style?
  • Are they known for treatments of textiles?
  • Symbols

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Lorenzo Lotto

Lucretia

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Giovanni Savoldo

Portrait of a Woman as St. Margaret

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The Question of Allegory

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  • Awareness
  • Back away slowly?
  • Using allegorical images despite themselves
  • Or not. . .

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Titian

Sacred and Profane Love

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Tinteretto

Judith and Holofernes

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Fede Galizi

Judith and her Handmaiden

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Who is the subject?

  • Pious
  • Trendsetter
  • Class
  • Propaganda
  • Genre portraits

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Does the age of the sitter

Isabella d'Este

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Match the style of the painting?

Isabella d'Este

Aged 60

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What were their contemporaries wearing?

  • Personality of the sitter
  • Politics rears its head again
  • Do certain details repeat?
  • Weirdnesses
  • Making tables for colors, jewel types etc

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Elizabeth Littleton

Separated

Spendthrift

Pious husband

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Laura Battiferri

Poet and intellectual

Popular in Spain

Illegitimate

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Can you match up the outfit with wardrobe accounts?

Wardrobe Warrants of Queen Elizabeth I

http://www.elizabethancostume.net/qewu.html

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Medici Archive

http://www.medici.org/

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New College MS 328

Edward and Mary

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Great Wardrobe Accounts of Henry VII and VIII

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Can you match with extant pieces?

  • Don't just look for extant clothing
  • Fabrics
  • Trims and Laces

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Larsdatter http://www.larsdatter.com/

Searchable database of Venice Museums http://www.archiviodellacomunicazione.it/Sicap/opac.aspx?WEB=MuseiVE&LNG=ENG

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Pick your favorite museum and start digging

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Make a list of search terms

  • Various languages
  • Include misspellings
  • Search by image
  • Include descriptors
  • Include terms used pre and post

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Have you looked at sculpture?

  • 3D!
  • Grave effigies
  • Problem of them being ceremonial an idealized

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Other considerations

  • Has your portrait been conserved or repainted? (and when and how carefully?)
  • "They didn't do ___" is almost never true

"They always did ___" is also never true

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KEEP LOOKING!!!

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