I know I love using 16th century portraits to inspire my garb designs just as much as so many other costumers. Pinterest has become a great resource for finding thousands of portraits that even I haven’t seen before, but how do you know when the pinner included the right description? And even if the description is right, how do you know which portraits are the best inspiration for the place and time you want to recreate?

After running into dozens of 16th century portraits given the wrong label, I decided it was time to create a resource of portraits I knew were labeled correctly, so over the last few weeks I’ve started building boards and checking the portrait’s descriptions against reliable sources. I now have over 2000 pins of confirmed portraits to share with you, and almost 1000 more waiting in the wings to be confirmed.

So, I invite you to follow the Margaret Roe Designs page on Facebook where I’ll introduce a new artist most Mondays, and show off some of his or her inspiring portraits during the rest of the week. Or, you can follow me on Pinterest to see the latest portraits I’ve confirmed.

Happy Sewing!
Margaret