Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance

The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance

Capron, Emma
Clayton, Martin
Wytema, Charlotte

Paperback

Art Criticism & TheoryArt HistoryIndividual Artists

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 1857096940
ISBN13: 9781857096941
Publisher: National Gallery London
Published: May 9 2023
Pages: 80
Weight: 0.90
Height: 0.47 Width: 8.82 Depth: 10.39
Language: English
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


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