Border of a book page

This hand-painted border of a book page dates back to the late 15th century. It shows, one below the other, two scenes of women working in mines, while a third depicts a ‘weather chimney’ from which smoke escapes. All three scenes are framed by lush green tendrils. Women’s labour definitely played a role in pre-industrial mining, but was rarely mentioned in written historical sources, or only peripherally. In contrast, women have been shown surprisingly often on pictures since the earliest depictions of mining of the 15th century, as can be seen on this page border. In the lowest scene a woman is depicted in a dark-brown dress, wearing a yellowish, long-sleeved undergarment and a straw hat. With her hands, she piles up ore in a barn – a brick-built stove for roasting ore. The upper scene shows a female worker on her knees crushing a pile of ore chunks with a thick hammer. She wears a light blue dress with a white undergarment and a white headscarf. This page border may have been created in the Siegerland region, but there are also indications that the motif originated in Bohemia.