Featured Garment: 1640s German Hunter

Disclaimer:  As always, my featured garment posts are meant to give ideas and promote discussion; unfortunately, this one is more filled with supposition than usual, since it is neither my period, nor one I could find much in the way of articles on.  If you do know of good quality articles on working class 1640s Low Countries/Germany--please, share!


To contrast with the last featured garment--the 1650s Anglo-Irish hunter--have another hunter from only a decade prior....but a whole different social class.

The topic this week is a painting by one Joachim von Sandrart, titled simply as November, and was painted in 1643.  I chose it because--let's be honest, that looks like a wonderfully warm and comfortable outfit.

In it, you can see clearly that he is wearing "peasant" or servant's clothing, rather than a more fashionable upper class style of doublet and breeches.  Once again, my google-fu is failing for this time period, so I am having to extrapolate based on earlier data.  Thankfully, working class clothing in this period changed somewhat slowly, as near as I can tell.


Outermost Garment:
For lack of a better name, I'm going to go with rock, or rockl (shorter version of the garment).  It has, as can be seen, 3/4 sleeves and only comes down to the upper thigh.  There may or may not have been shoulder seams--there was a variation of the garment which was cut with grown on sleeves (rather than sewn in).  Personally, I would make it with cut on sleeves.

You can also clearly see several of the buttons down the front--my guess is worked thread or fabric covered wood.

I am referring heavily to the fantastic recent publication Drie Schnittbucher on this, as it has both examples and patterns.  Even if said patterns are a century earlier, they should get you close.  To recreate this garment, I would likely use the pattern similar to the Beggars Garment [pp. 167], albeit with the addition of sleeves, or follow something along the lines of the Carter's Jacket [pp. 169] with normal sleeves, rather than the triangular back armscye (which is shown in a sketch here)

You can see a very similar garment (and even hat!) in a woodcut by Hans Sebald Beham, over a century earlier.

Dansend boerenpaar, Hans Sebald Beham, 1537

Doublet:
As near as I can tell from other examples in a similar time, we're looking at a fairly short doublet or jacket, with or without short peplums.  By this point, the waist has creeped back down to the natural waist, and--for this class--was much looser (than earlier upper class).  Sleeves are somewhat loose, and there would have been a collar.  It could have either been buttoned or just belted loosely at the waist.

Jonas Suyderhof, 1660s and wearing older styled clothing.

Le Nain, 1643

Legs:
Fairly loosely fitted breeches (and stockings) or hosen.  It appears that they were cut from the same or similar cloth as the rockl.  While you can't see them, if you go to Nicole Kipar's page on 1660s peasants, there are some paintings from not much further along (as well as one of an elderly fellow noted as wearing older fashions) that depict a variety of breeches and hosen.


Mittens:

They are mittens.  Appearing to also be made of the same heavy wool as the rock, but lined (or trimmed--peeking inside the gauntlet cuff, I'm not seeing fur on the inside) with some kind of fur.  Rabbit maybe?  Note that mittens of this time usually had fully inset thumbs, much like gloves.
However, it is certainly possible that they were knit and heavily fulled as well--there are examples of knit mittens from this period; see here.


And finally, The Hat:

The magnicifient hat is the whole reason I found this piece of artwork in the first place--I was trying to find the earliest example of the Russian Ushanka that I could.

Is it one?  I doubt it; it doesn't appear the shape of the upper the same (plus is taller), and the earflaps--if that is what they are--are also a different shape.  Probably related, though. The front bit that doesn't come down may be narrower, or the hat could be twisted slightly in wearing.
I believe it is made of either dark dyed leather (i.e. the flesh side of the fur) or a dark brown wool over...rabbit?

I want one.  I may very well make one.  If I do, I'll do a full writeup, don't worry.




Bibliography (such as it is):
Barich, Katherine; McNealy, Marion. Drei Schnittbucher. Nadel und Faden Press (2015).  ISPN 978-0692472453





© John Frey, 2016. The Author of this work retains full copyright for this material. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this document for non-commercial private research or educational purposes provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.