Costume imagery and the visualisation of humanity in early modern Europe

From travel sketches and ethnographic prints to lavishly illustrated costume books and albums, costume figures depicting global dress informed how early modern Europeans visualised ethnography. Dress practices informed identity and characterised diverse communities. In an era of enhanced transnational exchange and cross-cultural encounter, the typologies of dress formulated by costume imagery were inherently political and became a fundamental site for studying worldwide populations. The popularity of costume books, which witnessed the production of at least twelve printed publications in Europe between 1550 and 1600, exemplifies the period’s confidence in dress to signal kinship, allegiance, and identity. Publishers in Paris, Venice, Nuremberg, and Antwerp sought information about foreign clothing customs that were subsequently filtered into typologies of national character. As this chapter demonstrates, costume imagery was transformative in the advancement of ethnographic visions and cultural knowledge in the early modern world.

This chapter uses the subject of early modern costume imagery as an example for how historians can write abut the visual and use it to inform broader narratives about cultural values, concepts, and popular thought. By charting the production, circulation, and reception of costume imagery, it is seen that changing visual strategies and rhetorical devices led to iconographies of global sartorial character. Visual culture not merely reflected societal values but was critically dynamic in constructing popular ideas and disseminating cultural knowledge. This chapter considers the challenge presented by recycled, “derivative” imagery that proliferated in costume works. Themes explored include the tension between perception and representation, notions of authenticity and observation, artistic strategies, authorship, reception, and the transmission of imagery through various media.