The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck (1434); the woman wears a dress trimmed with miniver

Miniver, an unspotted white fur edged with grey, derives originally from the winter coat of the red squirrel. In England, the term became established as a general term for white or almost white fur.[1]

Miniver, in the original sense, differs from ermine (stoat) fur in that it does not include the distinctive black tails of the stoat but is formed of distinctive grey edged panels cut from the complete fur and framing the white belly. From a red squirrel, which has a greyish-white winter coat with a white underside, miniver gros, or vair, is the whole fur, including the grey, and miniver pure retains only the white part. The heraldic fur, vair, translates the grey into blue, and alternates back and belly.[2][1][3]

See also

  • The dictionary definition of miniver at Wiktionary

References

  1. 1 2 "University of Manchester, Lexis of Cloth & Clothing Project, Search Result For: 'miniver'". lexissearch.arts.manchester.ac.uk.
  2. ↑ Cumming, Valerie; Cunnington, C. W.; Cunnington, P. E. (1 September 2010). The Dictionary of Fashion History. Berg. ISBN 9781847887382 – via Google Books.
  3. ↑ R. Delort, Le commerce des fourrures en occident à la fin du moyen-âge, Rome, 1978.
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