UGLIEST WOMAN SOLD.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160639, 4 May 1920, Page 5

UGLIEST WOMAN SOLD.

MATSYS’ “DUCHESS."

Amidst the respectful hush of Christie’s sale room (says the Pall Mall Gazette), there was put up to auction the picture of a woman who could not have attracted more interest or a larger crowd had it been the portrait of the Helen for whom Troy burned, or Venus herself. It was'the pointing by Qnintin Matsys of the ugliest woman on earth, Margaret, Duchess of Carinthiu and 'Tyrol, in dim mediaeval days. The Duchess may have been a very estimable person, but she undoubtedly was hideous—if her portrayer tells the truth—as hideous as sin. No pantomime ugly sister ever came up to the appalling travesty of the human form that Matsys’ brush has left on tho canvas The great lady’s face is nearer that of one of the anthropoid apes than a woman, with tiny eyes, an upper lip incredibly long, a nose for which no 4«ord can be found —and the whole montrosity crowned with a jewelled headdress that multiplied her “charms” a hundredfold.

Instead of proving a disability to her selling value, the lack of beauty seemed to enhance it. Bidding started at 30 guineas, and rose rapidly by twenties to a large sum. The picture was finally carried off by Mr Blaker at 330 guineas. Quintin Matsys (1460-1530) was bom at Louvain, and died at Antwerp. Much of his work is characterised by a strong religious feeling, permeated, however, by a realism which frequently degenerated into the grotesque. Quintin's sister Catherine her husband suffered at Louvain in 1543 for the then capital offence of reading the Bible, he being decapitated, she buried alive in tho square fronting the cathedral.