An Old Woman (The Ugly Duchess)

Flemish artist Quinten Matsys painted this satirical portrait around 1513, creating one of the most memorable faces in Northern Renaissance art. An elderly woman with exaggerated features wears the aristocratic horned headdress of an earlier era, now decades out of fashion. She holds a red flower, a symbol of romantic engagement, suggesting she's trying to attract a suitor despite her advanced age.

The painting captures the emergence of the grotesque as an independent subject for painting. Matsys shared his interest in unusual physiognomy with Leonardo da Vinci, and scholars believe the artists may have exchanged drawings. Infrared analysis suggests Matsys based his composition on an early sketch, possibly shared with Leonardo.

The sitter gained her "Ugly Duchess" nickname in the 17th century through mistaken identification with Margaret Maultasch, Duchess of Carinthia. Two centuries later, John Tenniel used the image as inspiration for his Duchess in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The painting hangs at the National Gallery in London, bequeathed in 1947.