#stannsa

I had a wonderful time on the treadmill today – on several occassions I even found myself giggling like a little girl – for I have spent it sketching a scene I had in mind that I came up with at work and which was becoming still more and more elaborate. I haven’t drawn for months – and I never could draw well – but this idea just got a hold of me and I found myself holding a pencil and trying to draw a manly jaw and a frown and a head of a man with advanced male pattern baldness (Hamilton-Norwood scale stage VI or VII) in profile.

Overall: An official, royal portrait, either in full or three-quarter length, with Sansa, heavily pregnant, and Stannis, holding the almost-sheathed Lightbringer between them, standing facing each other, with their banners, shadowy in subdued colors, hanging in the background like tapestries.

Ahem. My sketch:

Background: The Baratheon banner is dark gold, with a single rearing stag with crown around its neck, enclosed in the flaming heart  (I tried, but the leg of the poor stag looks like a tardigrade lobopodium *sigh*). The Stark wolf is gray on lighter gray, running, placed on diagonal. Also, on second thought I should have drawn both the sigil animals facing the same way.

Sansa: Sansa wears a gown of pale, silvery gold (“cold gold” instead of the usual warm, reddish overtones) brocade or damask fabric with pattern of curving vines or half-moons or stylised animals or the like. The neckline of the dress is very low in the front and back and her throath is white and bare, exposed. She wears no jewelry apart from a single plain gold ring on her right thumb, and simple crown of smooth gold on her head. The fabric of her dress is very heavy and stiff and she holds the skirt up and supports it bunched over her belly – to accentuate her pregnancy – with her left hand.

Stannis: The one true king of the Seven Kingdoms wears a fitted long jacket / gown with standing collar made of stiff black fabric – either damask in very subdued dark pattern or velvet with short pile. Top of the poor Staniss’ head is cut off in my sketch, because – as usually – I started to draw the figures too far up the paper. The crown on his head is supposed to have the customary flaming points. He holds a sword (Lightbringer?) in front of him, the tip resting on the ground between him and Sansa. The sword is sheathed almost to the cross guards, but not quite, and the exposed part of the blade is glowing red. The scabbard is contrastingly simple and unadorned. Stannis’ left hand grasps the hilt of the sword, his right clutches the pommel and Sansa’s right hand is gently placed atop it, as if stalling his hand from unsheathing the sword.

Inspiration:

Of course I thought of Eyck’s 1434 Arnolfini nuptial portrait – as the absolute early classic of the genre of couple portraits. What inspired me the most (aside Mr Arnolfini’s sexy demure manner) was the way the bride gathers the heavy skirt of her houppelande (the outer green dress) and holds it against her belly. (That of course was not because she was pregnant and tried to hide it or, on the contrary, draw more attention to it, but because in the late middle ages a curving torso – small breasts, tiny waist and protruding belly – were considered desirable and attractive, and the overall silhouette of the women’s fashion of course mirrored this.)

Some other inspiring art, with relevant elements that fit into my vision of the fanart:

1490s Lorenzo di Credi - author's widowed sister-in-law

The hair, beautiful hands and serious, royal bearing.

1490c Follower of Rogier van der Weyden: detail from the Deposition

The dress.

1475-1500 Netherlands: detail from the Saint Godelieve altarpiece, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Auburn hair and contrasting white complexion.

Ambrosius Benson

The bodice of the dress is almost exactly how I envision Sansa’s dress to look like, including the low-cut neckline in the back.

Italian gold brocade, woven in the first half of the 15th century, with a pomegranate design in gold on a reddish-violet silk ground. Dress of  Queen Margaret, in Uppsala.

ca. 1506 Gossart – Mary Magdalen

1500-10 Master of Frankfurt: detail from the Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine, San Diego Museum of Art

Overall shape of the dress.

Two Allori portraits of Francesco I Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany.

There is at least a little resemblance, isn’t there? The alopecia isn’t fully progressed in this one, but the cheekbones, the bearing, the lean physique and (for the 16th century) scant ornamentation are all there for the people like me to draw comparisons and salivate.

1559 Meister des Antwerpener_Familienporträts

Example of a quite adorable family portrait, in full length; wife and husband with their respective coats of arms in the background.

1473-5 Giusto_di_gand - Dante, Louvre

Stannis' gown. Also in the next painting:

1471-5 Dirk Bouts: detail from Justice of Emperor Otto III

And here: (I know I know it's Littlefinger! But his coat thing is just dapper.)

... and that's it for now, because I don't think tumblr will handle any more pictures in this post.

I know this whole concept... is just silly, but it is such a guilty pleasure - with the planning and sumptuous fabric and the 21 year old difference and Stannis' delicious jaw - that I just can't help but feel invested in it, in a good way.