Do you see what I see?

[verymerryseamstress]

Over the weekend I was doing a bit of research for a freelance article I'm working on and I was looking through my historical painting books and spent a few minutes looking at this image, (Adoration of the Magi, 1496, by Filippino Lippi):



Something caught my eye, and after looking closer, I wanted to share with you what I saw (sorry for the grainy shot):


There, at his neckline of the blue garment.  Do my eyes deceive me, or does that look a heck of a lot like big, honkin', shiny brass grommets?

*chuckle*

[Trillium]

LOL!!!  Sure does....

[Lady Caroline]

That is amazing!  Good eye

[nliedel]

Well, there goes one theory down the dang drain. Now the hunt for more goes on. One painting does not proof make, but a hunt? Yes, indeedy do.

[Lady Kathleen of Olmsted]

Grommets, buckles, rivets go back to the Roman Empire days, even back to Alexander the Great even.

It does not surprise me that grommets would show up in a 15th Century painting.

[verymerryseamstress]

I'm not surprised either, really.  That's why I try to avoid saying things like "That's definitely not historically accurate!"

I wasn't there, (in fact, none of us were there) so it's not often that people can truly proclaim something to be 100% absolutely period INcorrect.  The best we can offer are educated theories, because even the few extant garments we have to use as guides are not inclusive of every single possibility.  Just because something doesn't appear often in portraiture, or occur in extant garments, doesn't mean that it's not possible.

I love keeping my mind open to all possibilities - even the unlikely ones!     I'm so geeked by stuff like this.

[Lady Kathleen of Olmsted]

The use of grommets, maile, rivets were key to keeping armor together used by the Egyptians, Greeks, and  Romans  thousands of years before Christ. It makes me wonder as well the intelligence needed to develope such little and much used things. Wonders never cease do they???.

It's the little things, Heather, that speak the loudest. You brought up a very good subject that not even I had thought of.

[Joyce "Delfinia DuSwallow" Howard]

Looks like BIG HONKIN' SHINY GROMMETS to me!

[isabelladangelo]

Playing devils advocate here:
What I see:  I see the laces going toward the gold things, coming to a point, and coming back out.  I do not see the laces going through the gold things, going around the fabric and coming back out the other side.  Instead, it looks like the laces might be going around some sort of hook on either side to get the spiral lacing.

Grommets were used but just not the huge silver, hammer them in, on a peasant bodice.  Metal was precious.  If you had money, you might have something metal to hold your lacing holes.  If you were poor, you didn't.  Lacing rings and simple hand sewn eyelets were the the most common to the point that grommets don't seem to even be present later on. 

[verymerryseamstress]

Huh, interesting perspective.  But I still see big, honkin' brass grommets.  I see the spiral lacing.  And the image is just too muddy to say they are absolutely not laced through the holes.   

I definitely don't see any hooks.

[Angus]

I refer to "Occam's razor", in times like this:

"entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem"
~or~
"entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity"

...but is generally paraphrased as:

"All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best."

...meaning that where one sees "hooks", another see "grommets", this does not mean one is right and one is wrong...

Just that it is far easier to make a metal hole, and thread a cord through it, than to create a hook that would hold a loose cord without unhooking...

My $0.02 worth...

[renren]

You see on the arm of the person behind this one, a sleeve... with what looks like grommets, too!

[verymerryseamstress]

RenRen, EXCELLENT eye!  I completely missed that!

Angus, have to agree with you on that, too.   

[Anna Iram]

Hey! Is that a zipper on the third Magi's robe? 

Kidding...kidding...


I too see rivets. It looks so funny! Doesn't it? My brain doesn't quite want to accept that.

[isabelladangelo]

I personally believe it's either a hook (I'm think like hooks and eyes?) or lacing rings simply shown on the outside.  It makes sense with seeing the lacing going around the gold but not around the fabric.