View Full Version : The Empresses Sleeve?
le pendu
18-10-2007, 09:17
While participating on the thread concerning her bag (http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?p=1228855), I noticed something.
In the Cary Sheet thread (http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=62044), there was a lot of discussion on the "hanging sleeve" on the Empress. Is the "umbrella shape", the "arm of her throne" seen on some TdM and other decks actually her sleeve, as shown on the Cary Sheet?
Cary Sheet, Bodet, Vieville, Noblet(flipped):
http://tarothistory.com/images/cary_empress.jpghttp://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t212/kwaw/Vieville/BodetEmpress.jpghttp://tarothistory.com/images/vieville_empress_sm.jpghttp://tarothistory.com/images/empressflipped.jpg
What do you think?
With the exception of the Noblet which has a clearly defined scallop shape with a hard top edge they could be, the vieville more so than the others.
What is the Cary-Yale empress holding in her right hand btw? The sceptre does not seem to be held but resting, while the empresses grasps what? A cloth bag as the others or just the cloth of her dress?
Kwaw
le pendu
18-10-2007, 10:07
What is the Cary-Yale empress holding in her right hand btw? The sceptre does not seem to be held but resting, while the empresses grasps what? A cloth bag as the others or just the cloth of her dress?
Hey now, the bag's got it's own thread! ;) ;) ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:GestatorialChair1.jpg
This view is of interest because it has a cup on the armrests of the Chair/throne. Many Medieval/Renaissance thrones had embellishment on the end of the armrest. Some had bowls or busts or globes. So that cupshape could well have been an embellishment on the throne.
http://inky.library.yale.edu/medwomen/04169797.html
This is a 16th century dress like the Cary Yale sheet Empress. I believe the top gown with the slitted bagged sleeve was called a Houppelande or in other countries called a Casaque. In the Noblet it seems to be earlier with fitted sleeves and the bands are ribbons that were wound around the sleeves. Are you asking if the the Noblet is a badly coloured version of the dress of the Cary-Yale Empress? I personally do not think so. By the time of the last crusades, much material had been brought back from the East- embriodered and rich fabrics- that changed the fashion of the Empress by the 16th Century. Sleeves were long and slittd to show the expensive tight fitting sleeves underneath. I think the Noblet was 15th Century dress.
~Rosanne
le pendu
18-10-2007, 10:41
We discussed the sleeves greatly in the Cary thread, and we were able to find references to the sleeves going back to the 1300s, and then forward for hundreds of years; so I think it's hard to date the Cary Sheet on the sleeves, as we tried.
Sure, it could be a cup or a bowl, I've always assumed it was part of the throne.
Now I'm wondering if it is actually a "left over" from the a drawing of a sleeve like on the Cary Sheet.
2 votes No.
Well I guess it could be a left over- but the drapery on the otherside is much longer, and the cup ending- presuming it is the bottom of the sleeve looks way too short to be a left over of a sleeve ending. I can see what you are driving at though, Robert. ~Rosanne
prudence
18-10-2007, 12:39
well, the Cary Yale seems like a sleeve ending, but the others seem more like the person tracing the lines did not know what s/he was meant to be tracing.
Anyone else see that?> Or think they see that?
Sagepowder
18-10-2007, 15:54
well, the Cary Yale seems like a sleeve ending, but the others seem more like the person tracing the lines did not know what s/he was meant to be tracing.
Anyone else see that?> Or think they see that?
I was thinking just the same. I seems that on the other three images the sleeve has been turned into the backdrop.
And I think she is grasping the scepter on the Cary Yale, it's just the way she's holding it that looks like her fingers aren't really holding on to it.
I agree with Robert and prudence. I think the object is an artifact of the Cary-Yale sleeve.
-- Lee
...and if it had not been for the other discussion on the 'bag' of the empress, this important and to my mind highly significant discovery of le pendu's would have awaited a couple more weeks before being discussed!!!
I personally totally agree that the otherwise ambiguous item below her elbow is a remnant of the misunderstood lines of her sleeve as it appeared in an earlier model, such as is clearly presented in the Cary Sheet.
The Vieville is especially interesting in this regard, being so 'close' to the Cary Sheet in depicting a 'dropped' sleeve without seeming to 'understand' the depiction.
I've just got my deck out to look at this, and the umbrella shape looks like it is part of the chair......the arm of the chair.....and she doesn't have the bag on mine either.....
Ang x