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While the "crescent" form of purse exists in a continuum from examples that may actually be sashes with contents rolled up in them, to examples that clearly have a "pouch" section that is gathered into a "belt" section, the group of artifacts considered in this part are all clearly "cut and sewn" in some fashion. On the one end, they merge into the crescent style, where the "flap" may have evolved from the loose edge of a roll of fabric. On the other end, they bear a strong similarity to the deeper style of "pilgrim's pouch" covered in my "Non Shepherds Purse styles" section. The dividing line on that end is largely one of stylistic "gestalt" -- does the artifact look more like a crescent-shaped pouch with a flap, or does it look like "shoulder-bag" style that happens to be worn around the waist?
Until I inserted the figures in this section, I hadn't noticed how similar the pairs of pouches and their arrangement are. The similarity extends only to the pouches themselves -- the overall scenes are entirely different. But it raises the nagging question of whether the artists were working in some manner from the same template.
Both of these examples have very interesting construction details which will be discussed more thoroughly in that section. Note that the "shaped" feature that defines this stylistic group involves some very different structures.
Stockholm-Kessel Book of Hours
Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal Paris MS 438
See the section on Attached Objects for a specific discussion of these. As in the crescent-shaped group, the pouches involved here are of the same types as those found without attached objects.
scenes of childhood/annunciation
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