La Muta - What fabric?

[Serenity]

Hello All!  I will be starting on another project soon and I need help.  I want to do a recreation (-ish) of a portrait.  Can you help me figure out what fabrics were most likely used?  The portrait is Rafael's "Portrait of a Young Woman (La Muta):



To my untrained eye, the sleeves look linen, but that's about the only thing I can guess.  The trim looks velvety to me, but since it appears to also be the apron strings I'm willing to bet that's not velvet    Do you think everything in the picture is linen?  Also, what about the sheer partlet (if it is a partlet and not a veil)?  Is she wearing a veil or just a ribbon around her head?  I have such a hard time telling in old paintings.

Thank you all!!

[isabelladangelo]

Actually, everything in the portrait that isn't white is most likely wool.  Linen was considered a poor man's fabric and wasn't used quite as much as we do.  Even in Italy, most of the records state something along the line of only the lowest peasants use linen.  However, for us, linen is cheaper than tropical weight wool most of the time, so we go with that.  :-)  Although, fabric dot com has a lot of wool sales - right now, there are a lot of wool blends that are mostly wool- so you can try to go with what would be correct. 

Another possibility would be silk for the dress.  Aprons were often fashion items and meant more to show the embroidery skill of the lady than they were to be functional.  Almost like purses are today - we have functional bags and then there are bags that are more than most of our yearly salaries.  The purses are meant to show off the style and class of the owner - same with the aprons back then.  Although the apron strings might look to be the same color, I can tell they are a bit more orangy red on my monitor than the trim on the dress.  It might be just that they are two different fabrics - linen on the apron, wool on the dress- but, if the dress is silk, then the trim would be velvet.  Just out of the same dye bath as the linen apron strings. 

[Serenity]

Isabella - you rock!     Thank you so much.

So it seems my 2 options are silk with velvet trim, or wool with wool trim?  Apron and camicia definitely linen yes?

And what about that sheer partlet?

Can't thank you enough 

[isabelladangelo]

The sheer partlet is most likely a very sheer silk that we can't produce or don't produce anymore.  I read once that a lot of different types of silkworm dyed out during the 1930's (Chinese Cultural Revolution).  I'm not sure how true that is, but it does make sense since that's about when you see a change in the type of silks for sale (it might also be because rayon and other unnatural fibers were big).    At any rate, it's not organza or georgette - however, georgette would probably be the closest you could get to the original super sheer silk.   If you can find it, silk net works well too.   

I've also seen many ladies just use a very fine hankyweight linen instead - which also works.   Yes, the chemise and the apron are both linen. :-)

Although not the exact same color - and a blend- I'd recommend this wool for the dress: http://www.fashionfabricsclub.com/p88749_31383-spring-green-suiting  It's lightweight, cheap ($5.75 a yard), and it's mostly wool (70%).   It should work well over a linen chemise. 

[operafantomet]

Like I sabella has already answered, it would most likely be wool. Whereas Florence had an amazing silk industry, most of it was for export. Local women used wool. But fine wools; some of the qualities was so time consuming to make they're not made any more. But standard qualities like "saia" (wool twill) and "panno di lana" (wool cloth) can still be found.

I'm not quite sure what to make of the red trims. Given it looks a bit more textured, it might be velvet? If so, it would probably be silk velvet. But modern silk velvet is more "pily" than historical versions. Modern cotton velvet is a closer match to historical silk velvet, with a short and smooth pile. If you make the dress of a smooth wool, it would also make a great contrast to use velvet; a nice historical understatement detail!

The chemise and apron would almost definitely be linen! I have yet to see a definite proof of other materials being used for chemises. The sleeves and the edging of the neckline has fine blackwork; the former of in the pattern of a sort of eternity knot shaped as an 8, the latter with harlequin squares overlapped by X-es. There's furthermore blackwork on the cuffs; another sort of eternity knot.

I do love your new project, I gotta say!

[gem]

The sleeves and the edging of the neckline has fine blackwork; the former of in the pattern of a sort of eternity knot shaped as an 8....

Interesting! I was interpreting the vertical bands on her sleeves as insertion lace, similar to this. I guess, mainly because the texture looks so much lighter/less bold than the crisp stitching on the neckline/cuffs, and because it doesn't look heavy enough for Assisi/voided work....

(Nice to see you, Anea, btw!!)

[isabelladangelo]

Interesting! I was interpreting the vertical bands on her sleeves as insertion lace. I guess, mainly because the texture looks so much lighter/less bold than the crisp stitching on the neckline/cuffs, and because it doesn't look heavy enough for Assisi/voided work....

(Nice to see you, Anea, btw!!)

Although they did have lace, it was very rare until the second half of the 16th century.  What we would consider insertion lace isn't seen until really the last quarter of the 16th Century.  Blackwork is seen from at least the 12th century on up.  You'll still find it in modern Bohemian style clothing -albeit by machine- all the time. 

[Serenity]

I figured you would, Anea!  You're my go-to gal for Italian styles!

I was actually curious about the stitching too.  (Would have been a question for a later post  )  The work on the sleeves looks like it is part of the fabric whereas the black is much bolder around the neckline and looks embroidered.  But you're saying it's all blackworked?  Very good to know!  I do not embroider very well so I may have to use a stitch my machine has for the sleeves and neck/cuff trims.  Probably won't be identical to the painting, but I think it'll get the gist across.

Loving all this information from you lovely ladies.  Thank you!

[operafantomet]

Interesting! I was interpreting the vertical bands on her sleeves as insertion lace. I guess, mainly because the texture looks so much lighter/less bold than the crisp stitching on the neckline/cuffs, and because it doesn't look heavy enough for Assisi/voided work....

(Nice to see you, Anea, btw!!)

Although they did have lace, it was very rare until the second half of the 16th century.  What we would consider insertion lace isn't seen until really the last quarter of the 16th Century.  Blackwork is seen from at least the 12th century on up.  You'll still find it in modern Bohemian style clothing -albeit by machine- all the time.

In terms of lace in early/mid 16th century, it would more often than not be threads removed and the edges bound (early cutwork lace). Lace in our typical sense of the word - embroidery on thin fabric, often with open areas - didn't gain popularity until the end of the 16th century, like you say. They had variants of lace, but usually small and narrow pieces, and it wasn't fashionable to use "everywhere" as seen in later eras.

The decos on the sleeves of the "La Muta" chemise might be a super fancy way of binding panels together, instead of actual embroidery. It was often done to great effect, like in the bodice/skirt of this extant Italian chemise from the second half of the 16th century:


(here the middle of the black/purple/gold decorations is panels bound together in a decorative manner, while there's embroidery on the sides of this binding).

Or all over in this Italian chemise - it has the same technique as the other, with the stripes in the middle being the joining of the panels, and the flowers at the sides embroidery. Because of these decos it's actually easy to tell how it was constructed!



The placement on the sleeves could indicate that "La Muta" has a chemise with such bound-together panels. However, it doesn't really LOOK like it, they usually went for a more square/linear style. The extreme curves of this pattern feels like a way too advanced way of joining panels. So my best guess is still embroidery, especially when going by clearer scans. In real life the dress is greener, without the sea green/blue-ish hue the Wikipedia scan has, and the assumed blackwork crisper.

[Rani Zemirah]

It looks to me as though she is wearing a very sheer fabric snood/net/bag type of thing (no idea what the actual term might be for it) that is held on by the rickrack ribbon on her head.  Here's a link to a much larger image, and it seems very clear that her hair is held in by whatever it is, with only a few tendrils escaping near her temples. 

[gem]

This example is also quite a bit later than the portrait, but it's a spectacular camicia with drawn-thread/cutwork bands, looking quite similar to La Muta's sleeves! The author of the book this image was taken from says that these cutwork/drawn threadwork designs were adapted from patterns for embroidery.



Larger/full length: http://realmofvenus.renaissanceitaly.net/workbox/ricci2.jpg

[Serenity]

Gah!  The dreaded "Forbidden" website...Can't see the pic Gem 

[isabelladangelo]

http://realmofvenus.renaissanceitaly.net/workbox/extcam5.htm

However, this is much later than La Muta - probably by 50 years.