Polish Peasants

[marmota]

Great picture of Polish peasants. Thank you for posting it. G.

[Pawian]

nancy said:

Pawian, what do you mean by "types" ?

Hmm, something like "blokes who are suspicious strangers"
(with a little derision intended).

[Pawian]

franek80 said:

Kai,
You are right and Nancy is right again, as usual. These costumes are from the 16th century.

Not only.
I am pretty sure these costumes were also worn by Polish peasants in 17, 18, 19 and in the beginning of 20th century.

[Pawian]

kaima said:

It seems everyone knows the folk costumes of 100 and 120 years ago, but there seems to be little record of what teh peasants wore in previous centuries.

Kai

Kai, the picture of Polish peasants of 16 century is not really a faithful visual representation of what they wore at the time. This picture was made by Jan Matejko, the greatest Polish history painter. www.stankiewicz.e.pl/index.php?kat=10&sub=64 and scroll down the page to get more.

But Matejko lived in 19 century, and when he painted pictures of the past, he had to guess a lot. E.g. he painted portraits of early Polish Kings, but they are not real, I mean, these portraits only show what Matejko THOUGHT THEY SHOULD LOOK LIKE.

The same with peasants. Going as far back as 16 century (years 1500-1600 !!!) we cannot be 100% sure these peasants wore such things. We can only guess it, and that`s what Matejko did, judging on the traditional costumes that Polish peasants used to wear through centuries. Polish village has always been very traditional and conservative, it was partly a result of poverty, so we can suppose that 19 costumes were much alike costumes from 16 century.


The pictures below were all painted in 19 century and present the costumes of the epoch:
www.stankiewicz.e.pl/obrazy/77.jpg
www.stankiewicz.e.pl/obrazy/62.jpg
www.stankiewicz.e.pl/obrazy/1.jpg
www.stankiewicz.e.pl/obrazy/51.jpg
www.stankiewicz.e.pl/obrazy/50.jpg


And there are more. They all come from the same website about Polish village:
www.stankiewicz.e.pl/index.php?kat=10&sub=54 and scroll down to see pictures.

[franek80]

PAWIAN.
That is absolutely amazing. I found the picture but I come to understand it much better now.. You guy's are full of information that I never knew before..It is keeping me busy reading all of the links.. Thanks to ya'all

[Pawian]

franek80 said:

You guy's are full of information that I never knew before..It is keeping me busy reading all of the links..

You can also check the pencil pictures made by Matejko in the series Polish Kings.

Mieszko I, the first known Polish ruler, a prince, 10 century:

www.malarze.pawlik.dmkhost.net/mieszko.htm


Boleslaw Chrobry, the first Polish king, 10-11 century:

www.malarze.pawlik.dmkhost.net/chrobry.htm

Now, how did Matejko paint these portraits?
Nobody made any visual representations of early Polish kings` faces in their times. There weren`t skillful painters then.
Some of rulers had their profiles printed on coins used in Poland. Some of them were described by contemporary historians and chroniclers.
Matejko probably read the chronicles and looked at coins, then he tried to paint. Imagine what he could paint having such scarce information.

I think the same applies to peasant costumes of 16 century.