further copies and copies of interest

[glittersweet]

whoops, this is in reverse order so it reads like I'm saying these are stickelshe, nope, mostly just musing on how it is very easy to misread or see what I want to.

In my previous post I looked at a possible portrait of Sibylla of Cleves and her son, which has been copied and also called Sophia of Mecklenberg. So that lead me down another series of mixed identities that has a little bearing on 

Sophia of Pomerania, later Duchess of Mecklenberg

Magnus, 1441-1503, hertig av Mecklenburg, Sofia , död 1504, prinsessa av Pommern

Her headdress has many features of a stickelsche, and the painting is most definitely posthumous as it looks more like the middle of the 16thC. 

And then the other Sophia of Mecklenberg, of 1481–1503, also has a similar but not identical kind of wide supported headdress.

Sophie of Mecklenburg (1481–1503)

This headdress may be why a portrait of her in England was attributed as Sibylla of Cleves.

Cranach the elder, Lucas; Portrait of an Unknown Lady; National Trust, Waddesdon Manor

So far so interesting, however K. Barich has found her also in the Cranach illustrated Stammbuch as Margaret von Anhalt (1494-1521) as the second wife of Johan, after Sophia.

Das Sächsische Stammbuch – Mscr.Dresd.R.3
Erscheinungsort[S.l.]Erscheinungsdatum1546SignaturMscr.Dresd.R.3

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So far so interesting but it does suggest the headdress is in fact Saxon. Which is also similar to the shape in this portrait of an unmarried girl by Lucas Cranach with the same general shape and the letter H again.

Lucas Cranach the Elder
born Kronach, Germany, 1472; died Weimar, Germany, 1553
Portrait of a Lady
around 1513

All of which means being careful with copies and even with attributing original works as sometimes personal taste in clothing can transcend regional fashions. This is certainly true of much of the history of dress.