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Roses curtains in art!
12 June 2025 10:47 am
This week I found this sweet 15th century manuscript image of what is almost exactly my roses curtains (which I based on two 14th century images) Isn't it just great? The manuscript is a German book of chess dated at between 1450 and 1500. Leipzig, UB, Ms 1595 for those who'd like to see more! Some historians try very hard to read a lot into the roses, citing that white or red denotes loyalty to a particular political side, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say not ALL roses represented the houses of York or Lancaster. Sometimes they were legitimately just a decorative feature.
It's very interesting that her cloak joiner seems to attach under the cloak, rather than with two external brooches like we usually see in both manuscripts and statues, although this could be an artistic representation rather that how it was worn in real time, which is one of the things about medieval art and clothing research which is tricky! When sources conflict, it may be an actual thing or just an artist who didn't know better..
Also a great looking settle she's sitting on. With a striped cushion (not a lambswool). And cute stripey rug, although it's quite possible that the rug is actually a large, striped cushion, which would be consistent with other artworks of women sitting in chairs. Again, the lack of tassels might indicate a rug, or just a cushion without tassels. An enormous amount of cushions in medieval art have tassels or Turk's head knots at the terminating corners.
Anyway, it's pretty nice for me to see my curtains represented in more art of the middle ages.
