It was very hot yesterday. The thought of folding clothes fresh from the dryer gave me a very gross feeling, so I decided to do something slightly more tedious but in my mind more rewarding - a spreadsheet featuring the colors of dress across the Antwerpen paintings of Beuckelaer and Aertsen. I am not a statistician and as my husband was looking at my data (I really wanted a pie chart, but he pointed out why that was perhaps not the best option), he commented that it what not very good. Some of it featured question marks, such as "peach sleeves with a black turned back cuff. lined?" because I intended this to be for personal use, but I couldn't resist sharing with those who asked (and those who didn't. Sorry Wendy!) So I tweaked the input, and things changed a bit.
The reason I was interested in this data is multi-faceted. Maritgen's inventory lists a red-brown kirtle with a red bodice and the different colored bodices are present in some of the 16th century Antwerpen market paintings. But how often does it really occur? What are the most common colors of overdress? What is the most common apron color? How many women are not wearing aprons?
And the caveat. . . I only used market dresses. If there was an upper class woman in the painting, I did not use her. If the painting had more than 5 women in it, I probably did not use it. I was trying to keep it documentable and easy to find the outfit listed, so I identified the women by "woman in the foreground, left. Woman in the background, right." etc. I did not really want to say "woman in the foreground, far left" and all the variants thereof. I used n/a for an item not being worn. Not visible for things I just could not see. Not clear for those blurry images of lacings on the women in the background. I probably could have excluded hose/petticote colors. I saw one example of hose (well, her legs above her shoe were black so I figured "black hose!") and one example where I'd say "hmm, that is a petticote for sure." I had more access to Beuckelaer paintings than I did Aertsen paintings. Color shift across monitors is very real. One person's salmon is another person's peach. And all of these colors have their own subtle variants.
Really, use this data at your own risk. I encourage you to do your own spreadsheet. I am not the final word on clothing colors across the market/brothel/kitchen scenes in Antwerp. I am also admittedly not that knowledgable about dyes in the Renaissance. I have a base knowledge of colors available, but I'm not sure about the cost of color. Does anyone have any resource suggestions?
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