Some research for 16th century Sweden

I'm currently more involved in a non-costuming project than I am in my costuming, so there isn't much crafting going on. I'm slowly working away on the Enfys Nest jumpsuit and waiting for my hard parts to arrive for her.

Research is something I can do in the breaks for the other project though, and I have continued my quest to recreate early Swedish 16th century, or to be even more precise the dress in the Bergslagen region.

The problem is that there are few images and sources, the earliest portraits and paintings are from the 1530s and show the royal family and high nobility. And even if it's clear that a lot of the fashion was imported from Germany I don't want to just imitate Germany fashion and hope that it will be correct.

Over the weekend I decided to once again go through images of church art. For that I used "Medeltidens bildvärld" - which is a site from the Swedish History Museum with collections of church art. The great thing is that it's divided up by county and parish, so you can go through quite exact geographical areas. For this I chose to go through the counties of Dalarna, Västmanland, Uppland, Södermandland and Närke, or basically the wider geographical area of Svealand. I also limited my search to pieces that were dated to the first quarter of the 16th century.

When it comes to church art there are two main kinds of arts; paintings and sculptures, usually large altar pieces. The altar pieces contains a lot of figures, but they are usually imported. In the early 16th century most of the altar pieces came from the Low Countries, meaning that they do not necessarily reflect the local fashion.

Altarpiece in Västerås cathedral, made in Antwerp

You do get some lovely costumes on the altar pieces though. I absolutely love the quilted baseball cap on the woman to the right, or the woman to the left that is wearing what to me mostly looks like Padmé's pilot helmet from Attack of the Clones. I have a pinterest board with some of my favorite fashion from altarpieces made in he Low Countries here.

The church paintings are different though. They had to be painted on site, and even if the artist might have been an expert craftmen from somewhere else he is more likely to paint what the people around him was wearing. Looking at church art in general it's also important to look at what they are portraying. Some saints and other holy figures have almost like a uniform that is differerent from the current fashion. You are more likely to find representations of local fashion in scenes depicting groups of people.

A popular scene to illustrate is the parable of the ten virgins, showing the bridesmaids in all their finery.

Söderby-Karl, Uppland

There are also paintings showing biblical feasts.

Dannemora, Uppland

Here is the whole family with Herod, his wife and Salome with the head of John the Baptist.

From time to time images of more ordinary women crop up as well, like these two fighting.

Dannemora, Uppland

or this woman churning butter with the devil

Dannemora, Uppland

I have a pinterest board with church paintings from Svealand here. I will definitely use it as inspiration for my 16th century projects.