Women’s History

21 Dec

Posted at 00:02h in courtesans, fashion, fashion history, French women, Louvre Museum, nasty women, Paris, Paris tour, royal mistresses, scandals and secrets, Shady Ladies, Women's History by
At the end of this very real annus terribilis, I want to say a few words to you, our loyal readers and attendees.  Above all, thanks!  Thanks for keeping Shady Ladies Tours alive by reading our blog, attending our Zoom tours, watching our YouTube videos, contributing to our fundraisers—in short, for being a fabulously loyal community.  When the pandemic hit the US, in March, it seemed likely to kill the company completely.  Who would have thought that 9 months later, as the pandemic continued to rage, we would be putting on our 18th Zoom tour, with audiences regularly over 100, and have gathered over 28,000 views for our videos? It's been a hard year, but ours is a tiny, flourishing corner.  And we have a lot more coming after the holidays!  Want to find out more?

10 Dec

Posted at 09:55h in British history, courtesans, royal mistresses, scandals and secrets, Shady Ladies, Women's History by
London's National Portrait Gallery has a great collection of portraits of famous and important people from British history.  If you ask the general public what that means, they would tell you it's a great place to see images of kings, queens, prime ministers, and other great people (mostly men). But actually, the National Portrait Gallery’s collection is much more fun than people realize.  It contains a lot of portraits of people with really entertaining stories, and these stories often revolve around the one thing that can make historical people seem really relatable:  love and sex.  And many of the most interesting stories are about *women*.

[* Purchase Tickets To the Scandals & Secrets Tours of the National Portrait Gallery of London *]

13 Feb

Posted at 20:31h in art history, courtesans, Metropolitan Museum, museum of fine arts, philadelphia museum of art, Women's History by
The world's museums are full of scandals and secrets.  John Singer Sargent's portrait of Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, known simply as Madame X, is a great example.  When it Scandals and Secrets, example Sargent's Madame X Sargent's Madame X, the original, with the fallen shoulder strap was unveiled at the 1884 Paris Salon, it caused such a scandal that Sargent's career was almost destroyed.  Who after all would want to hire a portrait-painter who caused scandals at the Salon?  It was also damaging, of course, for Gautreau's reputation as a society beauty.  Her family begged Sargent to withdraw the painting from the Salon, but he refused.  After the Salon, however, he repainted the detail that had caused the biggest scandal.

21 Jan

Posted at 13:46h in art history, Metropolitan Museum, nasty women, Women's History by
It seems unbelievably dated, but people are still calling ambitious, intelligent women "nasty women."  As if that could hurt anyone's feelings in 2020!  In fact, like many other outdated insults,  it has the opposite effect.  Many women today are are taking the term on (as lesbians took on the term 'dyke') and calling themselves "nasty women" in sarcastic protest.

10 Jun

Posted at 23:21h in courtesans, Shady Ladies, Women's History by
Lady Cavendish of the Devonshire clan pronounced one of their kind to be “a woman of notorious, shameless character.” The memoir of another was said to be a “list of dirty laundry.” In sixteenth century Venice, Sumptuary Laws forbade them from flaunting in public the gold, silver, silks, and gemstones that were the spoils of their sorcery. Nor were they allowed to “stand, kneel, or sit on the benches that in the church are occupied by noblewomen … taking care not to give offence to other decent persons.”

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