Portrait of the Patron Saint of Transvestites
Found: the earliest surviving formal portrait of the celebrated man/woman/spy
Chevalier d’Eon
whose first 49 years of life were spent as a man, and last 33 as a woman.
Indeed, Chevalier’s gender was so [...]
Suffragette Surveillance
One hundred years ago, women in Britain who wanted to vote were considered terrorists. Many were jailed, and although Scotland Yard wanted to record them in photographs, the women refused to cooperate. So in 1912, officials purchased a camera and hired a paparazzi-style photographer to shoot the inmates from a distance. BBC news explained how [...]
Scandalous Academician: Mary Moser
Mary Moser (1744-1819) was “one of the most celebrated women artists of 18th-century Britain,” yet today she’s mostly overlooked. In honor of the 265th anniversary of her birth, we’ve rounded up some of the most interesting facts about Moser.
1. Mary Moser received training from George III’s own drawing master—her father, George Michael Moser, an artist [...]
