Alexandra asked in the comments to the Gaudete Frock post:

I am working on the picture of the chessplayers by Lucas van Leyden.
As you have a great overview over his work as well as the dutch clothing tradition I wanted to ask you this: I have not found any hat or anything alike for what the woman on the right who is playing is wearing. I did find this on another picture of Lucas but not on any comparable graphic of other dutch artist during that time, not in books and not on your side. Is there a special meaning or tradition that comes within? Is this typical dutch also or may it refer to Italian clothing as well? Also, the men dressed in green/gold in the middle is characterized as a venetian merchant. Do you have information if this was a common sight/something people would see in Leiden around 1510 and would not find it strange? And what as well puzzles me is the woman in the background. She is dressed like a widow or an nun, yet with a far to big cleavage to be considered that. Is there any other meaning coming with these clothes? Do you have any suggestion to these questions? I would be more than grateful even for tiny hints and I hope the answering is not causing any trouble to you.

Great questions! Here’s my thoughts on that painting, the two women in the painting and the prevalence of Venetian merchants in the Netherlands.

The Chessplayers, Lucas van Leyden 1508

The painting

Jan Peeters quite aptly describes it as “a group of laconic, distracted members of the middle class, engaged in a trivial game of chess”. To me it has always seemed a somewhat bawdy image, although not as bawdy as the Fortuneteller. It’s a pleasant relief to see an image of people enjoying themselves after all the religious iconography of preceding centuries, and the contemporaneous Books of Hours.

The woman who is playing cards

This woman is one of my favourite of all those that Lucas van Leyden depicted. Back when I built this site in basis, table-layout HTML and hosted it on my university’s servers this image was on the homepage, because of that woman. I love the detail of her outfit, the two layers and how it demonstrates that turned-back bell sleeves are not your only option for the tabbaert layer. Her dress was part of the inspiration for my Red Kirtle, and helped inform the sleeve decoration on my coat.

However Alexandra asked about her hat. It’s actually a very common hat of the era, and is seen in a variety of styles in a variety of countries in Western Europe (but not Italy) especially by women at court. It seems that no self-respecting woman of the time would be without one. One day, soon, I’ll present my grand unifying theory of Spain + Burgundy + France + Brittany and this hat, but not today. Today instead we will settle for the following:

I refer to this hat as a beguin hood, others may call it a French hood, after the more commonly recognised Tudor term.

I forget where I first came across the term “beguin hood” but I remember it seemed more appropriate for a non-Tudor-centric clothing discussion. Van Leyden painted a variety of women in this hood, one of the most clear is his painting “Potiphar’s wife accusing Joseph” (at right).

You could have a look at the Headwear page for a general explanation of how I think they were constructed. I’ve made three attempts at this style in the past. Two of which are explained on this site, the third explanation is in the process of being written – as I finally have a photo!

The woman in the background

The woman in the background is wearing a hovetcleet (literally, headcloth), which is, for me, the defining element of Dutch and Flemish clothing of this period. That heart-shaped white veil isn’t seen anywhere else that I am aware of, and if I see it I tend to assume that it’s depicting a woman of the Low Countries in the late 15th and early 16th century.

It is worn by women of all social classes, for instance Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands (image below) who was twice widowed is depicted in this headwear. Gerard David is a good source as he shows the hovetcleet in many of his paintings of saints, and some of his female donors wear them in his triptychs (such as the image to the left). Lucas van Leyden shows women wearing this style in his paintings, and a couple of prints.

From what I’ve seen in images the hovetcleet is probably worn by married women and widows. My guess is that over time this style came to be worn by more conservative elements (widows and nuns as in the question above).

I’ve included a discussion on the layers necessary to wear a hovetcleet on my Headwear page. There’s even an image of a woman being beaten, which shows the layers of her hovetcleet strewn across the floor. It’s a fantastic image for historical reconstruction, and a horrible image for the subject matter.

Trade with Venice

Alexandra’s final question related to whether Venetian merchants would have been a common sight in Leiden in 1510. I’ve been reading about Juana of Castile recently, aka Juana la Loca, who was the wife of Phillip the Handsome, and the amount of travel that was occurring at the time as well as the expectation of how long it would take a letter to reach Spain from Bruges, suggests that merchants were a common enough sight in any coastal city with good to trade.

The Low Countries were renowned for the cloth production, as was Florence. Given Venice was the biggest trading port at the time and had a firm foot in the cloth trade with the Middle East, then they would be likely to show up in the Low Countries.

For more information on Low Countries trade in this period I encourage you to look into John Munro’s work.

Of sideways interest

This question sent me off on a hunt for a copy of the painting that I’d seen previously. Along the way I discovered other people’s, less costume focused, angles on this painting. For instance, it’s one of the best representations of the Courier Chess variant.