English School

1617

Portrait of a lady, three-quarter-length, in a red and white dress, holding gloves and a fan

Footnotes

Shown at the age of 36, the sitter in the present portrait is clearly a lady of some means, as revealed by her sumptuous costume and accessories. She wears a high winged lace collar which stands above the shoulders to frame her face. Her split sleeves, decorated with scrolling floral embroidery, end in deep lace cuffs which match her collar. Supported by a small wire frame or supportasse, this type of collar was slowly replacing the closed cartwheel ruffs popular in the previous decades. Below her collar she wears a high bodice which has been used to elongate her silhouette by bringing the front to a point below the waist forming the cone-shape which was so popular from the mid-16th century until the mid-17th century. The fabric of her bodice was reinforced by vertical seams forming channels at intervals which would have been filled with whalebone (or baleen) or dried reeds. Initially these stiff corsets were developed in order to stop the expensive and elaborate fabrics from wrinkling but by this point, early in the 17th century, they had become an essential part of a woman's wardrobe, given their ability to mould the female form. Once fastened together by pins or ties, it was held in place by a busk, a vertical strip made of bone, wood or horn which was inserted down the front. To carry her wide skirt, this lady then wears a great farthingale at her waist to form her skirts into a drum shape. Developed from the French farthingale, the great farthingale or wheel farthingale had become popular in Britain in the previous century. Particularly favoured by James VI and I's Queen, Anne of Denmark, she insisted on wearing them even after they had started to fall out fashion. The farthingale in the present portrait is tipped upwards at the back to further accentuate the tiny pointed waist of the sitter. To create this shape, the farthingale was held down at the front by the busk and held up at the back by a bum roll. By 1617 the drum and cone form of dress created with an elongated bodice and a wide, wheel farthingale was beginning to decline in popularity to be replaced by a much more relaxed form of dress with lightweight satins taking the place of the heavy fabrics of the present portrait and with falling band collars instead of the starch standing collar.

The objects in the sitter's hands are often chosen for a particular significance. The present lady holds a pair of gloves in her right hand, and in her left, a white tulip, along with a white feather fan tucked under her left arm. Often made of various types of leather, gloves in the 17th century were considered intimate objects of great luxury. In the current portrait, the gloves appear soft in the sitter's hand, suggesting that they are made of the finest kidskin. In line with the fashion of the day, they also have the long, tapering fingers ending in a point to further elongate them. These are elaborate gloves requiring the skills of many craftsmen: a tanner for the leather, a glover to create the shape and an expert embroiderer to create the elaborate decoration on the gauntlet. The fan was also considered a status symbol, so much so that some even warranted a mention in the Stowe inventory of Queen Elizabeth I's clothing (British Library, MS 557). This is of a fixed type with the feathers inserted into a single handle, as opposed to a folding fan which became much more fashionable later on in the 17th century. In her left hand, the sitter holds a white tulip. First introduced to Europe in the late-16th century, the tulip received its name from the word for the fabric used for a Turk's turban reflecting the turban-like form of a tulip in bloom. At this point, these flowers were still considered very exotic and as a result were expensive. In showing herself holding such a precious bloom, the sitter once again reveals her wealth and prosperity.