courtesan Tag

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 *]

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.”

Check Out Our Upcoming

ZOOM TOURS

BOOK NOW