Illusory Pregnancy: Drapery and the Early Modern Female Body

• In Event: Gender and Performance: Textiles, Dress, Costume, Fashion, Disguise

Abstract

Paintings of women executed across the Italian peninsula between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries exhibit a similar body type; irrespective of format, style, or genre, tight bodices frequently relent to projecting midsections beneath empire waistlines. Seemingly gravid bodies in full-length depictions of Renaissance women are often created by a specific combination of drapery and pose. Women grasp clothing in their hands and engage tactically with the material worn on their bodies. This drapery-gathering trope is uniquely female and shapes the body beneath. My paper employs Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass’ theories concerning the power of clothing and investiture to explain this visual trend. Under the investiture system, sensorial participation with drapery activated the transnaturing power of period clothing towards the duty to future maternity. I argue women’s clothing, the closest item to their skin in both lived experience and reflected depictions of reality, imbedded textile materiality with pregnancy expectation.

Author

• Lane Michelle Eagles, University of Washington, Seattle