Curator’s Introduction – The Ugly Duchess : Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
Emma Capron explained how the picture is more commonly called “An Old Woman” and was popularised as the model for John Tenniel’s original illustrations for the Duchess in “Alice in Wonderland”. However she then encouraged us to try to look at in the Renaissance context explaining the works in the exhibition which had been chosen to illustrate this.
She explained how it was based on a drawing by Leonardo which is only known in copies. It fits in his genre of drawing grotesque both from life and from his imagination and she talked about the role of these grotesque which were often used to imply moral laxity. She also talked about theories of comedy of the time and how this image might have reflected writings by Erasmus. One common moral and comedic trope was the idea of a couple mismatched in age.
I was most interest in the section which compared the work to drawings and prints of carnival dances which often show a comedy figure of an older woman in a similar headdress sometimes wielding a sausage! There is some speculation that this might be a man dressed as a woman. There is even a misericord in Ludlow which might refer to it.
Add in ideas of it being a parodying the idea of a joint portrait and she is shown in the exhibition with her pendant “An Old Man” for the first time since the end of the 17th century; that It may be referring back to the story of the ancient painter Zeuxis who is said to have died laughing at a portrait he painted of an old woman; how it fits in to idea of time about the world turned upside down and what it says about how older women were viewed in society.
There were so many layers to bring to this picture and the exhibition and I was very glad I’d done this talk before going. I’ve been to the show since and will blog it shortly.
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