The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance

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 ...