Clothing the Statue

 "Isabella, an expert seamstress, followed the old Spanish custom of sewing clothes for the image." Quote from page 100 of "A Bishop's Tale, Mathias Hovius Among His Flock in Seventeenth-Century Flanders" by Craig Harline and Eddy Put. Published by Yale University Press, 2001. 

Thus, we learn how the custom of dressing statues of Our Lady of Consolation came about. (Chapter 6 of "A Bishop's Tale" is about Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel.)

Isabella was born and raised in Spain. She was well educated and spoke Spanish, Dutch, Italian, and French. In 1599, on her way to the Spanish Netherlands, she and her husband Albert stopped in Nancy at the palace of the Duke of Lorraine. (See page 49 of the above-mentioned book.) Recall that just a few years later, in 1607, an altar piece with an image of Our Lady of Consolation would be installed at the Jesuit novitiate in Nancy. The Archdukes Albert and Isabella were very religious. They were generous in funding the Jesuits in the Spanish Netherlands. Recall it was a Jesuit in Luxembourg who titled a statue of Our Lady "Conolatrix Afflictorum". That statue in Luxembourg also wore a mantel. After Albert died, Isabella eventually retired and returned to Spain. There she became a nun until she died in 1633 at the age of 67. 

Note the Flemish inscription above

and the French inscription below

the statue.