A few years ago, this painting started making the rounds of online costuming circles. It’s part of a series of six paintings in the Koninklijk Museum Voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp of a Peasant Wedding by Marten Van Cleve, sadly only on Flickr. This is the last in the sequence, and this is the bride. Why the groom(?) is ducking out the window, I can’t say. Unfortunately, in every other image the bride is wearing an overgrown. So there are no images of what this dress would look like laced up. It does, however, propose an interesting potential construction method for the wide laced “Flemish market girl” outfits painted by Aertsen and Beuckelaer. (I have a Pinterest board for this style.) So I gave it a try.
Since this was a proof of concept outfit, I made it by disassembling the over-gown from my original market girl outfit. (I no longer have any pictures of it, but it was made per the instructions on the Elizabethan Costuming Page.) The top is made of olive flannel because I was only able to salvage the skirt and the back of the bodice from the original dress. The skirt kept its original burgundy lining. I cut two slits into the skirt, tacked on the placket to extend the flap, and pleated the skirt back on to the new bodice. To wear it, the flap is simply lifted and held into place while the bodice is laced over it. It is not pinned.
My version is not meant to be a faithful reconstruction of the Van Cleve outfit, but rather an attempt to use this concept to achieve the look of the Aertsen and Buckelear paintings. The Van Cleve dress appears to have no waist seam, and once laced it is probably entirely red. The market girl paintings have a clear waist with pleated on skirts. The skirt and bodice are occasionally different fabrics, and the placket behind the laces is almost always a different color than the bodice. The flap-placket and the bodice opening in the Van Cleve painting appears to be squared off. My placket is a trapezoid and the bodice opening is somewhat V-shaped.
The bodice is supportive, although less so than my usual front laced dresses. The placket stays in place once it is all laced up, but keeping it from buckling while it’s being laced is a bit of a pain. I am not particularly happy that the seam at the bottom of the placket and the waist seam do not match up. Still, it is a possible construction method for anyone attempting to make a “market girl” outfit in a single layer. When the apron and partlet are worn, the issues with the waist are covered up, and the result is a recognizably “Flemish” outfit.
Once I got Drei Schnittbuecher I began to wonder if the van Cleve dress is similar to the gown with the cut on bodice on page 243 (apart from the sleeves) or the gown with the all on one bodice on page 249. LMK if you want me to send you an image of what I’m referring to!
I’ve only seen the Drei Schnittbuecher book once, but I think I know what you mean. I suppose the Van Cleve dress could be cut like that, but honestly there’s not a ton to go on from the original painting. It’s unfortunate that the only one of the Van Cleeve series that shows the underdress is the one that shows it all unlaced. It’s really an assumption on my part to assume that the dress should end up looking like a fitted kirtle at all. The way Van Cleve shows it, it could just as likely be a loose sack. (These painters just have NO consideration for our historical recreation needs….)