2-726-155 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Coif, late 1500s. Sumptuous interlacing scrolls bearing flora and fruit decorate this headdress set composed of a coif, or cap (1934.206), and forehead cloth (1934.231). Individual motifs representing England appear within the scrolls, such as the Tudor rose, carnation, honeysuckle, and acorn. Fashionable ladies wore coifs in the house as semiformal dress and in bed for receiving. The large loops along its lower edge were drawn together to keep it in place. Worn pointing backward, the forehead cloth functioned like a visor, supposedly preventing wrinkles and keeping off the sun and cold air.