Becky Rautine wrote:
I don't think it is a sideless due to the conformaty of the front. It wouldn't lie so snug if not held against her breast. I think the light area is the fabric reflecting the light, or just a bad spot in the painting. Paint was mixed one area at a time then and it was easy to have inconsistant color values. They didn't have Sherman Williams to get a gallon of paint the same color. Also I don't think a saint would be allowed to be painted without modesty and respect. Cleavage was fine but not uncovered breasts on a saint.
De wasn't suggesting there was no fabric on the sides, or that any skin was showing. By "sideless," she was using a shorthand term for "sideless surcote," which was a style of overdress rather like an (American) jumper dress, with large armholes that reveal a separate dress, typically close-fitted, worn beneath it. If this were a real sideless surcote, that would have been the underdress showing at the sides. It's clear that the sleeves and the sides are of the same fabric.
In this case, as De recognized, this was not a normal sideless surcote. The artist used the contemporary style of a front-opening gown and tweaked it visually to evoke the recognizable and distinctive lines of the sideless surcote, which was tightly associated with Catherine's iconographic representation at that time. The resulting (nonexistent) garment makes no sense from a construction standpoint (the layering gets all fouled up, and it's not clear what parts would be underdress, overdress, or all the same layer), but the image has the visual cues that signal "Catherine."
(Can't help you on the Byzantine jewels, sorry, but you might want to post that question separately under a new subject line.)
--Robin _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
