The Ugly Duchess

Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance

Emma Capron, Martin Clayton, Charlotte Wytema

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Paperback

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English

National Gallery Company Ltd
29 June 2023

The Arts: General & Reference; Renaissance art; Individual artists, art monographs; Exhibition catalogues & specific collections

Quinten Massys’ An Old Woman (‘The Ugly Duchess’) is one of the Renaissance’s most famous faces. In a fresh review of the iconic image, this book unveils the painting’s original context: its status as a pioneering work of satirical art, its debt to Leonardo da Vinci’s grotesque drawings, and what it tells us about the period’s complex attitudes towards women, age and normative beauty.

The painting and its partner, An Old Man, are parodic portraits that mock the supposed lust and vanity of older women. Yet a closer look also reveals a figure defiantly flouting conventions and a painter subverting artistic expectations.

The publication traces the eventful afterlife and enduring power of this seminal image: how she gained her nickname ‘The Ugly Duchess’ and inspired John Tenniel’s much-loved illustrations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), capturing the imagination of generations of readers.

Published by National Gallery Global/Distributed by Yale University Press

Exhibition Schedule:

National Gallery, London, 16 March–11 June 2023

By: Emma Capron
Contributions by: Martin Clayton, Charlotte Wytema
Imprint: National Gallery Company Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 267mm, Width: 229mm,
ISBN: 9781857096941
ISBN 10: 1857096940
Pages: 80
Publication Date: 29 June 2023
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Emma Capron is Associate Curator of Renaissance Painting at the National Gallery, London. Martin Clayton is Head of Prints and Drawings at the Royal Collection Trust. Charlotte Wytema is the Simon Sainsbury Curatorial Fellow at the National Gallery, London.