The Flickr Marriageportrait Image Generatr

Black-and-white portrait of a Hungarian bride and groom from the early 1900s in traditional wedding attire.

On a rainy Saturday in March, sister and brother, Egbertine and Egden, perused the Egg family album to pass the time away. As they turned the pages, they came across a beautiful sepia photo of their grandparents, Egbert and Eglantyne on their wedding day in 1924. With a veil made of antique French lace, Eglantyne made the most beautiful and blushing bride, and looked perfectly matched with her handsome husband Egbert with his handlebar moustache, smart bow tie and top hat.

The theme for "Smile on Saturday" on the 30th of March is "eggs-pressive", as a tribute to Easter. For this theme, you had to take a picture of one or more eggs and these eggs had to be 'expressive', so they had to have 'faces' of some kind. In this case… or should that be carton… I have used hens’ eggs where I have drawn the faces on using very finely tipped felt tipped pens. I placed them against a crushed velvet background and I accessorised them with some vintage lace which served as a veil for our blushing bride, a piece of black ribbon for our dashing groom, some handmade 1:12 scale miniature roses made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering, and a 1:12 miniature top hat made by Heidi Ott. I have given the photograph a sepia treatment and framed it so it appears to be held in place in an old photo album using photo corners. I hope you like my choice for the theme this week, and that it makes you smile.

attr. Francesco Melzi, after Leonardo da Vinci
Red chalk

From the exhibition


The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
(March - June 2023)

This exhibition looks again at one of the best-known faces in the National Gallery: Quinten Massys’s 16th-century depiction of an old woman, a painting known as ‘The Ugly Duchess’. For the first time, this work is displayed with a related drawing after Leonardo da Vinci, showing their shared interest in fantastical, ‘grotesque’ heads and the vibrant artistic exchange between Italy and Northern Europe in the Renaissance.
‘The Ugly Duchess’ is reunited in the exhibition with her companion, 'An Old Man', on rare loan from a private collection. Massys shows us a woman whose age, appearance and deportment are noticeably different to other women represented in the collection. This is a deliberate choice by the artist. Her exaggerated facial features, devil-like headdress, low-cut dress and wrinkled bosom were used by Massys to parody the traditional marriage portrait: this is an old woman acting like a maiden and offering her partner – who is more formally and soberly dressed – an unrequited token of her love.
You might think that this painting served only as a cruel joke, where we are invited to laugh at this woman’s self-delusion. However, when you look beyond the surface you may discover a Duchess who is also subversive, fierce, and defiant – brazenly flouting the conventions of her day. The painting captures the rise of secular and satirical art during the Renaissance, two areas that Massys pioneered.
The exhibition also includes artworks that look at how women, old age and facial difference were satirised and demonised in the Renaissance, shaping attitudes that still exist today.
[*National Gallery]


Taken in the National Gallery

Quinten Massys
Oil on panel

Massys painted an old woman again in this striking panel. In contrast with 'The Ugly Duchess', her features are not exaggerated nor is she lavishly dressed. She belongs to low society.
Here Massys does not create the impression of a commissioned portrait, presenting the work instead as a straightforward tronie - small heads enjoyed for their character and expressiveness. The woman's grin and covetous sideways glance suggests she too may once have had a male pendant.*


From the exhibition


The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
(March - June 2023)

This exhibition looks again at one of the best-known faces in the National Gallery: Quinten Massys’s 16th-century depiction of an old woman, a painting known as ‘The Ugly Duchess’. For the first time, this work is displayed with a related drawing after Leonardo da Vinci, showing their shared interest in fantastical, ‘grotesque’ heads and the vibrant artistic exchange between Italy and Northern Europe in the Renaissance.
‘The Ugly Duchess’ is reunited in the exhibition with her companion, 'An Old Man', on rare loan from a private collection. Massys shows us a woman whose age, appearance and deportment are noticeably different to other women represented in the collection. This is a deliberate choice by the artist. Her exaggerated facial features, devil-like headdress, low-cut dress and wrinkled bosom were used by Massys to parody the traditional marriage portrait: this is an old woman acting like a maiden and offering her partner – who is more formally and soberly dressed – an unrequited token of her love.
You might think that this painting served only as a cruel joke, where we are invited to laugh at this woman’s self-delusion. However, when you look beyond the surface you may discover a Duchess who is also subversive, fierce, and defiant – brazenly flouting the conventions of her day. The painting captures the rise of secular and satirical art during the Renaissance, two areas that Massys pioneered.
The exhibition also includes artworks that look at how women, old age and facial difference were satirised and demonised in the Renaissance, shaping attitudes that still exist today.
[*National Gallery]


Taken in the National Gallery

An Old Man, c1513
Quinten Massys
Oil on panel

While An Old Man bears all the signs of advancing age, in contrast to 'The Ugly Duchess' his features do not stand out and his more conventional profile never achieved fame. Although also outdated, his costume is sober compared to hers. His raised hand is ambiguous: does he welcome or sternly refuse the old woman's advances, adding to her ridicule?
Massys broke decorum by placing the old man on the proper left, the lesser side usually reserved for women in double portraits. In these paintings, the world is upside down and women rule over men.*


From the exhibition


The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
(March - June 2023)

This exhibition looks again at one of the best-known faces in the National Gallery: Quinten Massys’s 16th-century depiction of an old woman, a painting known as ‘The Ugly Duchess’. For the first time, this work is displayed with a related drawing after Leonardo da Vinci, showing their shared interest in fantastical, ‘grotesque’ heads and the vibrant artistic exchange between Italy and Northern Europe in the Renaissance.
‘The Ugly Duchess’ is reunited in the exhibition with her companion, 'An Old Man', on rare loan from a private collection. Massys shows us a woman whose age, appearance and deportment are noticeably different to other women represented in the collection. This is a deliberate choice by the artist. Her exaggerated facial features, devil-like headdress, low-cut dress and wrinkled bosom were used by Massys to parody the traditional marriage portrait: this is an old woman acting like a maiden and offering her partner – who is more formally and soberly dressed – an unrequited token of her love.
You might think that this painting served only as a cruel joke, where we are invited to laugh at this woman’s self-delusion. However, when you look beyond the surface you may discover a Duchess who is also subversive, fierce, and defiant – brazenly flouting the conventions of her day. The painting captures the rise of secular and satirical art during the Renaissance, two areas that Massys pioneered.
The exhibition also includes artworks that look at how women, old age and facial difference were satirised and demonised in the Renaissance, shaping attitudes that still exist today.
[*National Gallery]


Taken in the National Gallery

An Old Man, 1513
Quinten Massys
Oil on paper laid down on canvas

This work, painted in oil on paper, shows the same exact profile as An Old Man nearby, with which it is displayed for the first time. The two heads are one to one in scale.
This work could have been made as a record of the larger panel or, more probably, in preparation for it. Massys signed and dated this work, perhaps when he realised the commercial appeal of such finely painted head studies.*


From the exhibition


The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
(March - June 2023)

This exhibition looks again at one of the best-known faces in the National Gallery: Quinten Massys’s 16th-century depiction of an old woman, a painting known as ‘The Ugly Duchess’. For the first time, this work is displayed with a related drawing after Leonardo da Vinci, showing their shared interest in fantastical, ‘grotesque’ heads and the vibrant artistic exchange between Italy and Northern Europe in the Renaissance.
‘The Ugly Duchess’ is reunited in the exhibition with her companion, 'An Old Man', on rare loan from a private collection. Massys shows us a woman whose age, appearance and deportment are noticeably different to other women represented in the collection. This is a deliberate choice by the artist. Her exaggerated facial features, devil-like headdress, low-cut dress and wrinkled bosom were used by Massys to parody the traditional marriage portrait: this is an old woman acting like a maiden and offering her partner – who is more formally and soberly dressed – an unrequited token of her love.
You might think that this painting served only as a cruel joke, where we are invited to laugh at this woman’s self-delusion. However, when you look beyond the surface you may discover a Duchess who is also subversive, fierce, and defiant – brazenly flouting the conventions of her day. The painting captures the rise of secular and satirical art during the Renaissance, two areas that Massys pioneered.
The exhibition also includes artworks that look at how women, old age and facial difference were satirised and demonised in the Renaissance, shaping attitudes that still exist today.
[*National Gallery]


Taken in the National Gallery

An Old Woman ('The Ugly Duchess'), c1513
Quinten Massys
Oil on panel

Massys turned Leonardo's design into an ambitious painting and gave it a pendant, An Old Man. She offers him a rosebud and dons a luxuriously provocative outift to seduce him. Yet in the 1510s, her monumental headpiece would have been old-fashioned and ridiculous. She defies every canon of beauty and rule of propriety.
This is a fictional portrait. Mocking the illusionism that defined the genre, Massys depicted every wrinkle and wart. He perhaps did so as a playful nod to the classical painter Zeuxis, said to have died of laughter beholding the vivid likeness of an old woman he had painted.*


From the exhibition


The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
(March - June 2023)

This exhibition looks again at one of the best-known faces in the National Gallery: Quinten Massys’s 16th-century depiction of an old woman, a painting known as ‘The Ugly Duchess’. For the first time, this work is displayed with a related drawing after Leonardo da Vinci, showing their shared interest in fantastical, ‘grotesque’ heads and the vibrant artistic exchange between Italy and Northern Europe in the Renaissance.
‘The Ugly Duchess’ is reunited in the exhibition with her companion, 'An Old Man', on rare loan from a private collection. Massys shows us a woman whose age, appearance and deportment are noticeably different to other women represented in the collection. This is a deliberate choice by the artist. Her exaggerated facial features, devil-like headdress, low-cut dress and wrinkled bosom were used by Massys to parody the traditional marriage portrait: this is an old woman acting like a maiden and offering her partner – who is more formally and soberly dressed – an unrequited token of her love.
You might think that this painting served only as a cruel joke, where we are invited to laugh at this woman’s self-delusion. However, when you look beyond the surface you may discover a Duchess who is also subversive, fierce, and defiant – brazenly flouting the conventions of her day. The painting captures the rise of secular and satirical art during the Renaissance, two areas that Massys pioneered.
The exhibition also includes artworks that look at how women, old age and facial difference were satirised and demonised in the Renaissance, shaping attitudes that still exist today.
[*National Gallery]


Taken in the National Gallery

Jan Gossaert (Jean Gossart)
Oil on parchment laid down on canvas

This double portrait of elderly spouses is the type of work Massys parodies with his satirical pair.
Like Massys, Gossaert took exquisite care in recording the sitters' appearance. Although he did not flatter them, he followed decorum: the wife's bosom is covered, her eyes are modestly cast downwards. She stands behind her husband, and crucially to his left - the less prestigious side occupied by women in double portraits. 'The Ugly Duchess' upsets all these conventions.*


From the exhibition


The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
(March - June 2023)

This exhibition looks again at one of the best-known faces in the National Gallery: Quinten Massys’s 16th-century depiction of an old woman, a painting known as ‘The Ugly Duchess’. For the first time, this work is displayed with a related drawing after Leonardo da Vinci, showing their shared interest in fantastical, ‘grotesque’ heads and the vibrant artistic exchange between Italy and Northern Europe in the Renaissance.
‘The Ugly Duchess’ is reunited in the exhibition with her companion, 'An Old Man', on rare loan from a private collection. Massys shows us a woman whose age, appearance and deportment are noticeably different to other women represented in the collection. This is a deliberate choice by the artist. Her exaggerated facial features, devil-like headdress, low-cut dress and wrinkled bosom were used by Massys to parody the traditional marriage portrait: this is an old woman acting like a maiden and offering her partner – who is more formally and soberly dressed – an unrequited token of her love.
You might think that this painting served only as a cruel joke, where we are invited to laugh at this woman’s self-delusion. However, when you look beyond the surface you may discover a Duchess who is also subversive, fierce, and defiant – brazenly flouting the conventions of her day. The painting captures the rise of secular and satirical art during the Renaissance, two areas that Massys pioneered.
The exhibition also includes artworks that look at how women, old age and facial difference were satirised and demonised in the Renaissance, shaping attitudes that still exist today.
[*National Gallery]


Taken in the National Gallery

Faenza
Tin-glazed and painted earthenware

Italian maiolica frequently featured belle donne (beautiful women). This bust is exceptional for doing the exact opposite.
Its satirical intent is obvious: the artist subverted the vibrant colours typical of glazed terracotta to make her attire look garish and her complexion sickly. The contrast between her eye-catching garment and her despondent stance (hunched shoulders, bowed head and toothless smile) is meant to elicit laughter. Similar objects are documented at Italian courts during the Renaissance, where they probably served as entertainment.*


From the exhibition


The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
(March - June 2023)

This exhibition looks again at one of the best-known faces in the National Gallery: Quinten Massys’s 16th-century depiction of an old woman, a painting known as ‘The Ugly Duchess’. For the first time, this work is displayed with a related drawing after Leonardo da Vinci, showing their shared interest in fantastical, ‘grotesque’ heads and the vibrant artistic exchange between Italy and Northern Europe in the Renaissance.
‘The Ugly Duchess’ is reunited in the exhibition with her companion, 'An Old Man', on rare loan from a private collection. Massys shows us a woman whose age, appearance and deportment are noticeably different to other women represented in the collection. This is a deliberate choice by the artist. Her exaggerated facial features, devil-like headdress, low-cut dress and wrinkled bosom were used by Massys to parody the traditional marriage portrait: this is an old woman acting like a maiden and offering her partner – who is more formally and soberly dressed – an unrequited token of her love.
You might think that this painting served only as a cruel joke, where we are invited to laugh at this woman’s self-delusion. However, when you look beyond the surface you may discover a Duchess who is also subversive, fierce, and defiant – brazenly flouting the conventions of her day. The painting captures the rise of secular and satirical art during the Renaissance, two areas that Massys pioneered.
The exhibition also includes artworks that look at how women, old age and facial difference were satirised and demonised in the Renaissance, shaping attitudes that still exist today.
[*National Gallery]


Taken in the National Gallery

From An Elderly Couple, c1520
Jan Gossaert (Jean Gossart)
Oil on parchment laid down on canvas

This double portrait of elderly spouses is the type of work Massys parodies with his satirical pair.
Like Massys, Gossaert took exquisite care in recording the sitters' appearance. Although he did not flatter them, he followed decorum: the wife's bosom is covered, her eyes are modestly cast downwards. She stands behind her husband, and crucially to his left - the less prestigious side occupied by women in double portraits. 'The Ugly Duchess' upsets all these conventions.*


From the exhibition


The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
(March - June 2023)

This exhibition looks again at one of the best-known faces in the National Gallery: Quinten Massys’s 16th-century depiction of an old woman, a painting known as ‘The Ugly Duchess’. For the first time, this work is displayed with a related drawing after Leonardo da Vinci, showing their shared interest in fantastical, ‘grotesque’ heads and the vibrant artistic exchange between Italy and Northern Europe in the Renaissance.
‘The Ugly Duchess’ is reunited in the exhibition with her companion, 'An Old Man', on rare loan from a private collection. Massys shows us a woman whose age, appearance and deportment are noticeably different to other women represented in the collection. This is a deliberate choice by the artist. Her exaggerated facial features, devil-like headdress, low-cut dress and wrinkled bosom were used by Massys to parody the traditional marriage portrait: this is an old woman acting like a maiden and offering her partner – who is more formally and soberly dressed – an unrequited token of her love.
You might think that this painting served only as a cruel joke, where we are invited to laugh at this woman’s self-delusion. However, when you look beyond the surface you may discover a Duchess who is also subversive, fierce, and defiant – brazenly flouting the conventions of her day. The painting captures the rise of secular and satirical art during the Renaissance, two areas that Massys pioneered.
The exhibition also includes artworks that look at how women, old age and facial difference were satirised and demonised in the Renaissance, shaping attitudes that still exist today.
[*National Gallery]


Taken in the National Gallery

attr. Francesco Melzi, after Leonardo da Vinci
Red chalk

From the exhibition


The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
(March - June 2023)

This exhibition looks again at one of the best-known faces in the National Gallery: Quinten Massys’s 16th-century depiction of an old woman, a painting known as ‘The Ugly Duchess’. For the first time, this work is displayed with a related drawing after Leonardo da Vinci, showing their shared interest in fantastical, ‘grotesque’ heads and the vibrant artistic exchange between Italy and Northern Europe in the Renaissance.
‘The Ugly Duchess’ is reunited in the exhibition with her companion, 'An Old Man', on rare loan from a private collection. Massys shows us a woman whose age, appearance and deportment are noticeably different to other women represented in the collection. This is a deliberate choice by the artist. Her exaggerated facial features, devil-like headdress, low-cut dress and wrinkled bosom were used by Massys to parody the traditional marriage portrait: this is an old woman acting like a maiden and offering her partner – who is more formally and soberly dressed – an unrequited token of her love.
You might think that this painting served only as a cruel joke, where we are invited to laugh at this woman’s self-delusion. However, when you look beyond the surface you may discover a Duchess who is also subversive, fierce, and defiant – brazenly flouting the conventions of her day. The painting captures the rise of secular and satirical art during the Renaissance, two areas that Massys pioneered.
The exhibition also includes artworks that look at how women, old age and facial difference were satirised and demonised in the Renaissance, shaping attitudes that still exist today.
[*National Gallery]


Taken in the National Gallery

Quinten Massys
Oil on panel

Massys painted an old woman again in this striking panel. In contrast with 'The Ugly Duchess', her features are not exaggerated nor is she lavishly dressed. She belongs to low society.
Here Massys does not create the impression of a commissioned portrait, presenting the work instead as a straightforward tronie - small heads enjoyed for their character and expressiveness. The woman's grin and covetous sideways glance suggests she too may once have had a male pendant.*


From the exhibition


The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
(March - June 2023)

This exhibition looks again at one of the best-known faces in the National Gallery: Quinten Massys’s 16th-century depiction of an old woman, a painting known as ‘The Ugly Duchess’. For the first time, this work is displayed with a related drawing after Leonardo da Vinci, showing their shared interest in fantastical, ‘grotesque’ heads and the vibrant artistic exchange between Italy and Northern Europe in the Renaissance.
‘The Ugly Duchess’ is reunited in the exhibition with her companion, 'An Old Man', on rare loan from a private collection. Massys shows us a woman whose age, appearance and deportment are noticeably different to other women represented in the collection. This is a deliberate choice by the artist. Her exaggerated facial features, devil-like headdress, low-cut dress and wrinkled bosom were used by Massys to parody the traditional marriage portrait: this is an old woman acting like a maiden and offering her partner – who is more formally and soberly dressed – an unrequited token of her love.
You might think that this painting served only as a cruel joke, where we are invited to laugh at this woman’s self-delusion. However, when you look beyond the surface you may discover a Duchess who is also subversive, fierce, and defiant – brazenly flouting the conventions of her day. The painting captures the rise of secular and satirical art during the Renaissance, two areas that Massys pioneered.
The exhibition also includes artworks that look at how women, old age and facial difference were satirised and demonised in the Renaissance, shaping attitudes that still exist today.
[*National Gallery]


Taken in the National Gallery

Quinten Massys
Oil on panel

Massys turned Leonardo's design into an ambitious painting and gave it a pendant, An Old Man. She offers him a rosebud and dons a luxuriously provocative outift to seduce him. Yet in the 1510s, her monumental headpiece would have been old-fashioned and ridiculous. She defies every canon of beauty and rule of propriety.
This is a fictional portrait. Mocking the illusionism that defined the genre, Massys depicted every wrinkle and wart. He perhaps did so as a playful nod to the classical painter Zeuxis, said to have died of laughter beholding the vivid likeness of an old woman he had painted.*


From the exhibition


The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
(March - June 2023)

This exhibition looks again at one of the best-known faces in the National Gallery: Quinten Massys’s 16th-century depiction of an old woman, a painting known as ‘The Ugly Duchess’. For the first time, this work is displayed with a related drawing after Leonardo da Vinci, showing their shared interest in fantastical, ‘grotesque’ heads and the vibrant artistic exchange between Italy and Northern Europe in the Renaissance.
‘The Ugly Duchess’ is reunited in the exhibition with her companion, 'An Old Man', on rare loan from a private collection. Massys shows us a woman whose age, appearance and deportment are noticeably different to other women represented in the collection. This is a deliberate choice by the artist. Her exaggerated facial features, devil-like headdress, low-cut dress and wrinkled bosom were used by Massys to parody the traditional marriage portrait: this is an old woman acting like a maiden and offering her partner – who is more formally and soberly dressed – an unrequited token of her love.
You might think that this painting served only as a cruel joke, where we are invited to laugh at this woman’s self-delusion. However, when you look beyond the surface you may discover a Duchess who is also subversive, fierce, and defiant – brazenly flouting the conventions of her day. The painting captures the rise of secular and satirical art during the Renaissance, two areas that Massys pioneered.
The exhibition also includes artworks that look at how women, old age and facial difference were satirised and demonised in the Renaissance, shaping attitudes that still exist today.
[*National Gallery]


Taken in the National Gallery

Quinten Massys
Oil on panel

While An Old Man bears all the signs of advancing age, in contrast to 'The Ugly Duchess' his features do not stand out and his more conventional profile never achieved fame. Although also outdated, his costume is sober compared to hers. His raised hand is ambiguous: does he welcome or sternly refuse the old woman's advances, adding to her ridicule?
Massys broke decorum by placing the old man on the proper left, the lesser side usually reserved for women in double portraits. In these paintings, the world is upside down and women rule over men.*


From the exhibition


The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
(March - June 2023)

This exhibition looks again at one of the best-known faces in the National Gallery: Quinten Massys’s 16th-century depiction of an old woman, a painting known as ‘The Ugly Duchess’. For the first time, this work is displayed with a related drawing after Leonardo da Vinci, showing their shared interest in fantastical, ‘grotesque’ heads and the vibrant artistic exchange between Italy and Northern Europe in the Renaissance.
‘The Ugly Duchess’ is reunited in the exhibition with her companion, 'An Old Man', on rare loan from a private collection. Massys shows us a woman whose age, appearance and deportment are noticeably different to other women represented in the collection. This is a deliberate choice by the artist. Her exaggerated facial features, devil-like headdress, low-cut dress and wrinkled bosom were used by Massys to parody the traditional marriage portrait: this is an old woman acting like a maiden and offering her partner – who is more formally and soberly dressed – an unrequited token of her love.
You might think that this painting served only as a cruel joke, where we are invited to laugh at this woman’s self-delusion. However, when you look beyond the surface you may discover a Duchess who is also subversive, fierce, and defiant – brazenly flouting the conventions of her day. The painting captures the rise of secular and satirical art during the Renaissance, two areas that Massys pioneered.
The exhibition also includes artworks that look at how women, old age and facial difference were satirised and demonised in the Renaissance, shaping attitudes that still exist today.
[*National Gallery]


Taken in the National Gallery

Faenza
Tin-glazed and painted earthenware

Italian maiolica frequently featured belle donne (beautiful women). This bust is exceptional for doing the exact opposite.
Its satirical intent is obvious: the artist subverted the vibrant colours typical of glazed terracotta to make her attire look garish and her complexion sickly. The contrast between her eye-catching garment and her despondent stance (hunched shoulders, bowed head and toothless smile) is meant to elicit laughter. Similar objects are documented at Italian courts during the Renaissance, where they probably served as entertainment.*


From the exhibition


The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
(March - June 2023)

This exhibition looks again at one of the best-known faces in the National Gallery: Quinten Massys’s 16th-century depiction of an old woman, a painting known as ‘The Ugly Duchess’. For the first time, this work is displayed with a related drawing after Leonardo da Vinci, showing their shared interest in fantastical, ‘grotesque’ heads and the vibrant artistic exchange between Italy and Northern Europe in the Renaissance.
‘The Ugly Duchess’ is reunited in the exhibition with her companion, 'An Old Man', on rare loan from a private collection. Massys shows us a woman whose age, appearance and deportment are noticeably different to other women represented in the collection. This is a deliberate choice by the artist. Her exaggerated facial features, devil-like headdress, low-cut dress and wrinkled bosom were used by Massys to parody the traditional marriage portrait: this is an old woman acting like a maiden and offering her partner – who is more formally and soberly dressed – an unrequited token of her love.
You might think that this painting served only as a cruel joke, where we are invited to laugh at this woman’s self-delusion. However, when you look beyond the surface you may discover a Duchess who is also subversive, fierce, and defiant – brazenly flouting the conventions of her day. The painting captures the rise of secular and satirical art during the Renaissance, two areas that Massys pioneered.
The exhibition also includes artworks that look at how women, old age and facial difference were satirised and demonised in the Renaissance, shaping attitudes that still exist today.
[*National Gallery]


Taken in the National Gallery

Quinten Massys
Oil on panel

Massys turned Leonardo's design into an ambitious painting and gave it a pendant, An Old Man. She offers him a rosebud and dons a luxuriously provocative outift to seduce him. Yet in the 1510s, her monumental headpiece would have been old-fashioned and ridiculous. She defies every canon of beauty and rule of propriety.
This is a fictional portrait. Mocking the illusionism that defined the genre, Massys depicted every wrinkle and wart. He perhaps did so as a playful nod to the classical painter Zeuxis, said to have died of laughter beholding the vivid likeness of an old woman he had painted.*


From the exhibition


The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
(March - June 2023)

This exhibition looks again at one of the best-known faces in the National Gallery: Quinten Massys’s 16th-century depiction of an old woman, a painting known as ‘The Ugly Duchess’. For the first time, this work is displayed with a related drawing after Leonardo da Vinci, showing their shared interest in fantastical, ‘grotesque’ heads and the vibrant artistic exchange between Italy and Northern Europe in the Renaissance.
‘The Ugly Duchess’ is reunited in the exhibition with her companion, 'An Old Man', on rare loan from a private collection. Massys shows us a woman whose age, appearance and deportment are noticeably different to other women represented in the collection. This is a deliberate choice by the artist. Her exaggerated facial features, devil-like headdress, low-cut dress and wrinkled bosom were used by Massys to parody the traditional marriage portrait: this is an old woman acting like a maiden and offering her partner – who is more formally and soberly dressed – an unrequited token of her love.
You might think that this painting served only as a cruel joke, where we are invited to laugh at this woman’s self-delusion. However, when you look beyond the surface you may discover a Duchess who is also subversive, fierce, and defiant – brazenly flouting the conventions of her day. The painting captures the rise of secular and satirical art during the Renaissance, two areas that Massys pioneered.
The exhibition also includes artworks that look at how women, old age and facial difference were satirised and demonised in the Renaissance, shaping attitudes that still exist today.
[*National Gallery]


Taken in the National Gallery

Quinten Massys
Oil on paper laid down on canvas

This work, painted in oil on paper, shows the same exact profile as An Old Man nearby, with which it is displayed for the first time. The two heads are one to one in scale.
This work could have been made as a record of the larger panel or, more probably, in preparation for it. Massys signed and dated this work, perhaps when he realised the commercial appeal of such finely painted head studies.*


From the exhibition


The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
(March - June 2023)

This exhibition looks again at one of the best-known faces in the National Gallery: Quinten Massys’s 16th-century depiction of an old woman, a painting known as ‘The Ugly Duchess’. For the first time, this work is displayed with a related drawing after Leonardo da Vinci, showing their shared interest in fantastical, ‘grotesque’ heads and the vibrant artistic exchange between Italy and Northern Europe in the Renaissance.
‘The Ugly Duchess’ is reunited in the exhibition with her companion, 'An Old Man', on rare loan from a private collection. Massys shows us a woman whose age, appearance and deportment are noticeably different to other women represented in the collection. This is a deliberate choice by the artist. Her exaggerated facial features, devil-like headdress, low-cut dress and wrinkled bosom were used by Massys to parody the traditional marriage portrait: this is an old woman acting like a maiden and offering her partner – who is more formally and soberly dressed – an unrequited token of her love.
You might think that this painting served only as a cruel joke, where we are invited to laugh at this woman’s self-delusion. However, when you look beyond the surface you may discover a Duchess who is also subversive, fierce, and defiant – brazenly flouting the conventions of her day. The painting captures the rise of secular and satirical art during the Renaissance, two areas that Massys pioneered.
The exhibition also includes artworks that look at how women, old age and facial difference were satirised and demonised in the Renaissance, shaping attitudes that still exist today.
[*National Gallery]


Taken in the National Gallery

attr. Francesco Melzi, after Leonardo da Vinci
Red chalk

From the exhibition


The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
(March - June 2023)

This exhibition looks again at one of the best-known faces in the National Gallery: Quinten Massys’s 16th-century depiction of an old woman, a painting known as ‘The Ugly Duchess’. For the first time, this work is displayed with a related drawing after Leonardo da Vinci, showing their shared interest in fantastical, ‘grotesque’ heads and the vibrant artistic exchange between Italy and Northern Europe in the Renaissance.
‘The Ugly Duchess’ is reunited in the exhibition with her companion, 'An Old Man', on rare loan from a private collection. Massys shows us a woman whose age, appearance and deportment are noticeably different to other women represented in the collection. This is a deliberate choice by the artist. Her exaggerated facial features, devil-like headdress, low-cut dress and wrinkled bosom were used by Massys to parody the traditional marriage portrait: this is an old woman acting like a maiden and offering her partner – who is more formally and soberly dressed – an unrequited token of her love.
You might think that this painting served only as a cruel joke, where we are invited to laugh at this woman’s self-delusion. However, when you look beyond the surface you may discover a Duchess who is also subversive, fierce, and defiant – brazenly flouting the conventions of her day. The painting captures the rise of secular and satirical art during the Renaissance, two areas that Massys pioneered.
The exhibition also includes artworks that look at how women, old age and facial difference were satirised and demonised in the Renaissance, shaping attitudes that still exist today.
[*National Gallery]


Taken in the National Gallery

An Old Man, c1513
Quinten Massys
Oil on panel

While An Old Man bears all the signs of advancing age, in contrast to 'The Ugly Duchess' his features do not stand out and his more conventional profile never achieved fame. Although also outdated, his costume is sober compared to hers. His raised hand is ambiguous: does he welcome or sternly refuse the old woman's advances, adding to her ridicule?
Massys broke decorum by placing the old man on the proper left, the lesser side usually reserved for women in double portraits. In these paintings, the world is upside down and women rule over men.*


From the exhibition


The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
(March - June 2023)

This exhibition looks again at one of the best-known faces in the National Gallery: Quinten Massys’s 16th-century depiction of an old woman, a painting known as ‘The Ugly Duchess’. For the first time, this work is displayed with a related drawing after Leonardo da Vinci, showing their shared interest in fantastical, ‘grotesque’ heads and the vibrant artistic exchange between Italy and Northern Europe in the Renaissance.
‘The Ugly Duchess’ is reunited in the exhibition with her companion, 'An Old Man', on rare loan from a private collection. Massys shows us a woman whose age, appearance and deportment are noticeably different to other women represented in the collection. This is a deliberate choice by the artist. Her exaggerated facial features, devil-like headdress, low-cut dress and wrinkled bosom were used by Massys to parody the traditional marriage portrait: this is an old woman acting like a maiden and offering her partner – who is more formally and soberly dressed – an unrequited token of her love.
You might think that this painting served only as a cruel joke, where we are invited to laugh at this woman’s self-delusion. However, when you look beyond the surface you may discover a Duchess who is also subversive, fierce, and defiant – brazenly flouting the conventions of her day. The painting captures the rise of secular and satirical art during the Renaissance, two areas that Massys pioneered.
The exhibition also includes artworks that look at how women, old age and facial difference were satirised and demonised in the Renaissance, shaping attitudes that still exist today.
[*National Gallery]


Taken in the National Gallery

From An Elderly Couple, c1520
Jan Gossaert (Jean Gossart)
Oil on parchment laid down on canvas

This double portrait of elderly spouses is the type of work Massys parodies with his satirical pair.
Like Massys, Gossaert took exquisite care in recording the sitters' appearance. Although he did not flatter them, he followed decorum: the wife's bosom is covered, her eyes are modestly cast downwards. She stands behind her husband, and crucially to his left - the less prestigious side occupied by women in double portraits. 'The Ugly Duchess' upsets all these conventions.*


From the exhibition


The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
(March - June 2023)

This exhibition looks again at one of the best-known faces in the National Gallery: Quinten Massys’s 16th-century depiction of an old woman, a painting known as ‘The Ugly Duchess’. For the first time, this work is displayed with a related drawing after Leonardo da Vinci, showing their shared interest in fantastical, ‘grotesque’ heads and the vibrant artistic exchange between Italy and Northern Europe in the Renaissance.
‘The Ugly Duchess’ is reunited in the exhibition with her companion, 'An Old Man', on rare loan from a private collection. Massys shows us a woman whose age, appearance and deportment are noticeably different to other women represented in the collection. This is a deliberate choice by the artist. Her exaggerated facial features, devil-like headdress, low-cut dress and wrinkled bosom were used by Massys to parody the traditional marriage portrait: this is an old woman acting like a maiden and offering her partner – who is more formally and soberly dressed – an unrequited token of her love.
You might think that this painting served only as a cruel joke, where we are invited to laugh at this woman’s self-delusion. However, when you look beyond the surface you may discover a Duchess who is also subversive, fierce, and defiant – brazenly flouting the conventions of her day. The painting captures the rise of secular and satirical art during the Renaissance, two areas that Massys pioneered.
The exhibition also includes artworks that look at how women, old age and facial difference were satirised and demonised in the Renaissance, shaping attitudes that still exist today.
[*National Gallery]


Taken in the National Gallery