While I was working on my hair accessories A&S entry, I started down yet another rabbit hole concerning the gefrens. I found an image on Germanrenaissance.net titled: “A scene of St.Clare of Assisi,1465-70” that shows a variety of hair accessories on the table to the right including a pair of Zöpfe, a mysterious headband type accessory and a gefrens.
A scene of St.Clare of Assisi,1465-70 with her hair being cut off.
Now I feel like I can safely say that I’ve looked at no less than 150 different images of gefrens and this one kinda stood out for a number of reasons. First, the cool headband, fillet looking thing, which I’ve seen a handful of times, but mostly because the gefrens was painted as being very stiff looking to me. It is also yellow (or perhaps gold) in color, so that made me wonder if the gefrens in this painting wasn’t made from fibers as many others appear to be.
Detail from ‘Krönchenstechen’, after 1480, Housebook Master of castle Wolfegg, South Germany
Maybe it’s just me, but the infamous multi-colored gefrens I adore so much is drawn in a fashion that makes it look hair-like; wavy, or with a noticeably fibrous texture. Compare it to the close up of the one from the painting of St. Clare:
A close up and brightened version of the hair accessories
I tried not to alter the original color too much, but I wanted to get a better idea of the texture by brightening up the existing image. If the artist took the time to paint the Zöpfe as wavy (as they would be after being braiding for so long) then why did they not take the same care to paint the gefrens in the same fashion? Perhaps this gefrens was made from metal? It would certainly line up with the coloring being golden in appearance. Also, since it is being used to represent a saint, many times their clothing or adornments are left to artistic interpretation (making them appear to be made from precious metal, or completely non-period in appearance) so it wouldn’t necessarily be something a woman would have or wear in the day to day business of their lives. However, I must also add yet another pic of interest to this rant:
The Babenberger Genealogie. This panel painting, dated 1489-1492s. Could the woman on the left be wearing a metallic or beaded gefrens? She also seems to be wearing a similar headband to the image of St. Clare.
It certainly looks beaded to me. Between these two pics of a possible metal/beaded gefrens this has opened up quite a few more possible hair accessories for me to explore, including the headband/fillet type accessory seen by both women in these pics. While I can’t say these accessories are the norm for a majority of women, we do have some reference to them being used for regular (albeit nobility) women. I hope to find more info on the headband piece because I would love to add it to my wardrobe!