Peasant Fashion in the Low Countries: Stage Two. Pieter Aertsen

As you may have guessed, this project ended up being significantly more massive than anticipated.  This is the start of Stage 2 of my notes for you to springboard off of if needed; just make sure to give credit and a link back to here.  I had originally planned to publish all of the Stage 2 notes--describing the clothing of each guy in the paintings, but then realized that that post would be massive, since this 13 pages without images, and is only the first of the artists (although one of the more prolific ones).  As a reminder--since I have had someone try to tempt me into scope creep into foods and maybe women's clothing as well--I am only focusing on the men and menswear for this project, since there is a fair amount on women's clothing out there already.

For the most part, I am listing the clothing articles from top to bottom, outside to inside, or at least do so towards the end.  The paintings are presented in chronological order when the date is known, in order to show any developments in fashion during the time he lived in whatever town.  For the most parts, I do not give my theories as to what the garments are made of, but given that we are dealing with lower class, various wools are most likely, with linen for the shirts.

I do not plan to put up copies of every one of the paintings, which, I need to note for copyright, do not belong to me and are public domain.  Image source is linked with the title of the painting.

One (partial) step closer to the end goal!

Pieter Aertsen 1508-1575.  Born in Amsterdam (Netherlands), moved to and lived in Antwerp (Northern Belgium) from around 1540-1555, when he moved back to Amsterdam.  Presumably, the subjects in his paintings were local to him.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Aertsen

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Peasant Fashion in the Low Countries: Stage One

Some time ago--in response to having been recently working on a garment which was for high court--I decided I wanted to play with Low Countries clothing.  Specifically, peasant clothing.  Fashion A La Brueghel, as I immediately dubbed it.  Historical Dutch beer may have also been involved in this decision, because who doesn't design an outfit to match a beer they might be drinking?

That is where I ran into a snag.  While there are several excellent articles out there on /women's/ Low Countries clothing, the selection of articles covering the details for menswear was decidedly lacking.  So, naturally, I decided I needed to do a bunch of research and write my own articles on the topic.  I fairly quickly decided on the plan of going through the artwork of Brueghel and other Flemish artists of the period, and winnowing out any pieces which did not have usable details; so marking down any paintings which had the distinctive clothing of the correct class (i.e. Not Nobility), and which weren't purely allegorical and religious in tone since the clothing of those is often suspect.