“Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that she could wear sleeves not less bare of style than those in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters”
The sentence is from George Eliot's Middlemarch. "Not less bare of style", what does it mean?
"Not less bare of style" is a roundabout way to say "with even less style", but, at least at first, it's not clear how this fits the context. It helps to include the previous line
Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that she could wear sleeves not less bare of style than those in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters; and her profile as well as her stature and bearing seemed to gain the more dignity from her plain garments ...
and one from later on:
Miss Brooke's plain dressing was due to mixed conditions, in most of which her sister shared ... Young women of such birth, living in a quiet country-house, and attending a village church hardly larger than a parlor, naturally regarded frippery as the ambition of a huckster's daughter.
(Emphasis mine).
The meaning of this phrase should now be readily apparent. We can assume Italian painters depicted the Blessed Virgin dressed in very plain clothing, without excessive ornamentation, e.g. this Madonna and Child (1518) by Giuliano Bugiardini:
In the same way, Miss Brooke had a beauty that was complemented by the simplicity of the way she dressed.
"Not less bare of style" means "as bare of style or more bare of style" (in the same way that "not less than 2" means "greater than or equal to 2"). In other words, she could wear sleeves that were as plain and unstylish as those worn by the Virgin in the paintings, or perhaps even more so.
