GEORGIAN WOMEN’S CLOTHING ACCORDING TO THE ALBUM OF CRISTOFORO DE CASTELLI – ARTIST’S FANTASY OR REALITY

Abstract

The lack of material monuments of Georgian clothing prior to the XVIII century poses a significant challenge to presenting a comprehensive picture of Georgian costume history and comprehending the process of its development. Foreign sources from various epochs contain useful information for resolving this issue. Among them are the works of Don Cristoforo de Castelli, an Italian Theatine missionary and pastor, who worked in our country in the XVII century. The goal of the present research is to determine if the seventeenth-century Georgian clothing (women’s costumes) and headgears depicted in Cristoforo de Castelli’s work conform to reality or are merely the artist’s fantasy, what shall be done by analyzing the clothing and comparing to the relevant Georgian and foreign pictorial sources.
The research is based on approved art history methods. An in-depth examination of Castelli’s sketches and paintings reveals that the majority of the clothes depicted in the album have a counterpart in Georgian painting (monumental and miniature) and written monuments. Only few of them seem to be distinct, and their use is not confirmed by Georgian sources. In this regard, we should particularly note the entire gallery of headgears depicted in the albums, the majority of which are completely alien to Georgian tradition and have analogues only in portraits of Muslim queens - that is explained by the influence of the Court etiquette and fashion of the eastern super-states. The research confirmed that the various clothing and headgear depicted in Castelli’s album are not a figment of the artist’s imagination, but documentary material created over time by an eyewitness-observer, and they reflect, like a mirror, the reality in which the author himself was an accomplice. As a result, his work is still relevant today and is one of the most reliable and important sources for the history and establishment of the process of evolution of Georgian costume.