A deep dive into Luxembourg's fashion through statues

The first inscription describes Heinrich von Metzenhausen, lord of Linster, Meisenburg, and Waldeck, who died in 1574. The middle inscription is for his first wife Eva Waldbott von Bassenheim, who died in 1564. The third inscription is for his second wife Johannetta von Elter, being the second marriage for both her and her husband, who died in 1576. Johannetta had the sculptor Hans Rupprecht Hoffmann (1545-1616) create the epitaph during her lifetime and placed it in St. Martin's Church of Junglinster.

St. Martin's Church in Junglinster has several epitaphs with statues. These epitaphs, plus other sources, provide evidence of the styles and fashions that were used in Luxembourg at the nobility level, but not royalty. While Heinrich sports armour over his clothing, which is very typical of Luxembourgish images of men, the ladies are portrayed in their normal attire. The caps they wear on their heads would have been made of thin, fine linen. The middle statue has an over-cap, with the ends of the under-cap showing near her ears.

Before we look at the clothing, we can use the epitaphs as evidence of how head coverings evolved over time in Luxembourg. Here are epitaphs (Grabdenkmäler) at St. Martin's Church. For these women who are of the noble class, they start with what is called a “hood” with little halos at the temple and a tail.

In the painting of Metgen, we can see that the caps with the halo at the temple were popular in Utrecht, Netherlands during the 1550s. This suggests that Luxembourg was within 10-20 years of new headwear fashion trends from the Netherlands.

St. Martin's epitaphs from left to right in chronological order of death: Elisabeth Von Elter († 1540), Eva Waldbott von Bassenheim († 1564), Anna Von Malberg († 1568), Johannetta von Elter († 1576), and Juliana Von Baulich († 1597). As a comparison, a painting by Antonis Mor van Dashorst (1517-1577) of his wife Metgen, after his return to Utrecht, Netherlands in 1554 and before Metgen’s death in 1558.

You may be wondering if their clothing was specific to Luxembourg or trendy fashions. We have two resources at hand. The first is that we can see Metgen’s 1550s cover-gown is of the same style as the over-gowns worn by both Eva Waldbott von Bassenheim († 1564) and Johannetta von Elter († 1576). This implies that maybe Eva was wearing a popular over-gown while also wearing a conservative fitted cap. Eva may have had a conservative way of thinking.

Second, there are four books on fashion from the 16th century. One is the 1577 publication by Hans Weigel. You can view his book free online here. The second book was bound with original drawings before 1584, published by Lucas D’Heere (1534-1584). Located at the University of Gent. Access is free online. A third fashion book was published in 1586 by Jost Amman.. A fourth book was published in 1598 by Cesare Vecellio. This book can also be viewed free online here.

All four books have three or more fashion plates from Italy, particularly Vecellio’s book. The reason for this is that Italy was the epicentre of fashion during the 16th and continued through the 17th century. The books also mention France, the Netherlands, Brabant, Flanders, Lotharingia (Lorraine/Metz), Switzerland, Augsburg, Cologne, and many other places… but not specifically Luxembourg.

There may have been a reason why fashion plates specifically labelled “Luxembourg” were not included. Prior to 1659, Luxembourg was much larger. It was twice the size it is today. It included the cities of Stennay, Thionville, Montmedy, Arlon, Bastogne, the Luxembourg Province now found in Belgium, and the City of Trier. Additionally, the princely estate of Luxembourg was held in union with the estates of Flanders and Brabant. When the fashion books were written, they likely thought of Luxembourg as a much larger place geographically that included the larger City of Trier and as part of the union with Flanders and Brabant.

We can use these three fashion books to determine if Eva († 1564) and Johannetta († 1576) were wearing fashionable clothes. With the knowledge that Heinrich is a lord, and we compare them to the fashions of other nobility. Due to the limited space, the images from Hans Weigel’s 1577 book are shared below. We can see that they shared a similar style with the royal family from Cologne and Rhein. The shape of the over-coat with the stand-up collar also has puff sleeves that end above the elbow. The front-brow of their head caps is also similar. The Cologne-Rhein caps also have halos at the temples, but the back is flared out like horns. Luxembourg did not adopt the horns at the back of the caps. This is compared to a noblewoman from France, known as Galla in the 16th century. However, the 1550s painting of Metgen also shows the same short-sleeved over-gown as worn by the Cologne-Rhein nobility.

These epitaphs place Luxembourgish fashions from the 16th century within the circle of Netherlandish-Cologne-Rhein styles. But this should not be surprising. As will be discussed in a later article, trade flowed north and south between the Netherlands, Belgic princely estates, and Luxembourg. Both Munich and Switzerland were also mentioned in trade and tax documents. Furniture from Cologne is mentioned in a 17th-century female’s probate inventory that will also be discussed. This north-south trade is also reflected in the tax code of the 17th century, which lists the textiles and other goods that were traded.

In conclusion, we can see that the Luxembourgish nobility wore clothing in the same styles as those in the Netherlands-Cologne-Rhein areas. Understanding what Luxembourgish people wore during a certain century is important culturally too. If a museum were to provide the public with an artist’s rendition of what Luxembourg looked like in the 16th century, putting Swiss or French clothes on the people would be misleading.

We can't assert with absolute certainty that Luxembourgish nobility never wore Swiss or French clothing in Luxembourg during the 16th century. However, such attire would have been more characteristic of immigrants or soldiers who had not yet assimilated to local fashion norms.

Tara Mancini is an author with Buffalo Raising Journal. Articles have covered topic categories such as culture, charitable fundraisers, and city and State infrastructure since 2016. Mancini’s hobbies includes reading and collecting data from 17th century documents, then inputing the data into a database using spreadsheets for use in her articles.