A renaissance German apron - Schurz

Aprons in renaissance Germany where wore both as a practical garment and for more formal occasions. In male fashion the apron was wore as a protectiv layer, but in the woman´s clothing the execution and occasion sat the standard of the apron. There where an apron for every occasion, formal in finer materials and steadier working ones. The contemporary designations Schurz, Schurzrock, Schurz fur, Schurzhemd and Schurzfleck refer to differences in apperence. According to Jutta Zanders-Seidel (Textilier Hausrat) the apron surrounding the whole skirt is called a Schurz. The Schurz, also called a doppelschurze, a dubbleapron, had during the 15th century and early 16th century also a part over the shoulders, covering the upper body, as in this painting by Albrect Dürer. In paintings these are also often seen on midwifes.

According to Zanders-Seidel this developed during the 16th century into the waist-surrounding apron, without the upper part, looking almost like a second skirt. Like this one in one of Hans Wertingers paintings The Labors of the month from 1525. 

Here is another one from the same set of paintings. 

In everyday life an apron covering the whole skirt, a washable layer over a usually not washable dress, most have been effectiv and helpfull. This type where used of both peasant and patrician women. I have not seen it in any woodcuts of woman of the landsknechttross though. Edit: just found one! (21 june). The woodcut is made by Jacob Vinck and is of a soldier and a woman. Its an apron of this kind, with a pleated waistline.

In the painting Pyramus and Thisbe by Hans Baldung we can see another apron of this kind. This one has a decorative seam, possibly drawn threadwork, at the hemline and what I think is a smock at the waist.

I desided to make mine in white linen, with some decorations. According to the clothing directories in Germany the aprons where predominantly made of linen fabrics, linen/cotton or wool. In England a common fabric for working aprons was durance, a very close wollen weave, making it a safe choice when working over open fire. The colours on aprons in Germany where almost invariably limited to white, red and black, according to inventories. But in paintings we can also see green ones, embroidered ones, and with fur linings or with stripes. 

I made mine with drawn threadwork at the hemline and a decorative row of stay-stiches at the waistline. I saw that on the sleeve-ends of the white linen shirt worn by Nils Sture, now in the museum of the Uppsala cathedral, from 1567. There is also a lot of pictures of it in Patterns of Fashion 4, by Janet Arnold. I used waxed linen thread and all the seams are felled and whip stitched. 

The drawn threadwork at the hemline is made like this. The hemline is 330 cm. 

I started with basting stitches to make the gathers. 

All the gathers at the waistline are held in place on the outside, as a decoration, by a single line of stitching. 

Then I added the waistband with whip stitches. 

And this is how it turned out!

If I make an apron like this again I would make it longer, its clearly to short for me. A bit like the one in Hans Baldungs painting but still to short. 

This is me at an event in may when I just started sewing on the apron. 

Literature:

Patterns of Fashion 4

Textilier Hausrat

The Tudor Tailor

Golden egg project – The pattern

The society of the golden egg is a challenge household for the arts and sciences in the Kingdom of Drachenwald, within the Society for Creative Anachronism. The aim of the Society of the Golden Egg is to encourage artisans to increase their knowledge and skills through continuous challenges of at least intermediate difficulty, but which are a personal challenge to the person seeking to join the society. Challengers normally have up to one year to complete their challenge. Im going to recreate a german 16th century embroidery, a headgeardecoration from 1510-15. To read more about my challenge look here.

Portrait of a woman by Bernhard Strigel 1510-15

Embroidered pieces of this kind where used during the first half of the 16^th century in Germany, before other types of headgear went into fashion. For my golden egg challenge I have been looking for a similar pattern as my chosen embroidery but whas not sure I was going to find one. 

Geometrical patterns (late Gotic) was common during the first part of the 16^th century to be replaced by softer more natural forms (early Renaissance). Flowers where common motifs, and especially the eight petaled flowers as in my chosen embroidery. The patternbooks are full of exampels of this kind. They can be made as wowen bands, or with different kind of stitching, like blackstitch, whitework or satin stitch. My guess is that the embroidery in the painting is more towards the late gotic with its heavily decorated surface and almost geometrical repeated pattern, than early renaissance.

In the introduction of the reprint from 1994 of the New Modelbüch from 1568 the eight petaled flower is called the Venedigische stern, Venetian star. Probably for beeing prevalent in textiles and carpets imported into Europe during the timeperiod, from the Mediterranean. 

All of these patterns above is examples of the Venetian star from the patternbook New Modelbüch from 1568. As you can see there are a lot of patterns like this but not one looking exact like the one in my chosen painting. 

And then I ran into a hand drawn pattern book from 1759 from Augsburg in Germany, the Modelbuch by Johann Tobias Frolich and Marcus Luz. It contains a large number of patterns from the 16th century printed books. And there it was! My pattern...sort of...It has big similarities with my painting and can be found on page 46:

The book belong to the Clark Art Institute and it is scanned and able to look at here. 

But as not beeing exactly the same I needed to remake it and try my remake out, My first tryouts did not work. My linen was to uneven. But with a more even weave it worked out just fine. I worked with double running stitch, black silk thread and every stitch is 4 threads in the fabric.

I started with remaking the pattern, from what I thought lookt like a pattern for cross stitch, into a pattern with one outline and more fitting for doubble running stitch, the stitch I think a big part of the embroidery are made with. Because of the thin black outlines of the flowers.

And the next step – making it more like a flower or a star and reduce and tilt the squares a bit. 

To make the pattern looking even more like the one in the painting I tried to make the flower slimmer. I notised that by doing so I could no longer count the stitches, it became uneven. And my guess is that it is going to be difficult to make the satin stitch look good in the next step. But it look like this.

Here is the pattern together with the embroidery from the painting and my remade pattern. Looking quite good, right! To make it more like the painting I might need to make the petales slimmer. And also try stitches for the braid-looking-part in between the flowers and the squares. I think the red and green parts are made with satin stitch but I need to order some silk and try it out! Cant wait!

During the process following questions arose:

Do I need to make the flowers slimmer to match the painting? If I do its going to be difficult to make it a counted running stitch and all the flowers is going to be a struggle with colouring later.

It looks like Bernhard Strigel used the colour from the lindenboard for the flowers. Did the colour disapeared during time or has is always been so? And what colours should I use then, for my embroidery? Is the quest to make an embroidery looking exaclty like the one in the picture? Even if I, during the process, founds out that the painter must have used some artistic freedom with the embroidery?

Modelbücher
The word modelbüch means ”pattern book” in german. Johannes Schönsperger the younger printed the earliest, surviving, publication in Augsburg, Germany, Furm oder modelbüchlein, in 1524 and was soon followed by others in Italy, France and England. During the first half of the 16th century, Augsburg was the main site for publishing pattern books in Germany. The oldest editions are made as woodcuts. Several editions were printed and older designs were often present when new authors published new pattern books. None of the volumes contains written directions or diagram for executing stitches. This tells us quite much about the reader´s technical skills.

Literature:

http://runeberg.org/bokobibl/1934/0105.htm

lhttps://archive.org/details/MAB.31962000742712Images

German renaissance patterns for embroidery – A facsimile copy of Nicolas Bassées new modelbuch of 1568

Prydnadssömmar under medeltiden – Anne Marie Franzén och Margareta Nockert

German Modelbücher 1524-1556 Reprint Marion McKnealy

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437759

Patterns of Fashion 4