What makes a celebrated beauty, and who sets the standards by which it is judged? In 17th-century Restoration London, the answer was clear.
In the 1660s, Sir Peter Lely, court painter to Charles II, painted a series of portraits of 10 prominent society women, led by Barbara Villiers, 1st Duchess of Cleveland, the king’s principal mistress. Over time the collection came to be known as the “Windsor Beauties” and held as the archetype of feminine loveliness of the time.
