16/03/2023 - 11/06/2023

From the 16th of March, visitors of The National Gallery in London can discover Metsys’ Portrait of an Old Woman from The Phoebus Foundation collection at the new exhibition The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance. The exposition focuses, among others, on Quinten Metsys’ portrait of the Ugly Duchess, a related drawing after Leonardo da Vinci, and other artworks portraying older women. The paintings demonstrate Metsys’ fascination with depicting the grotesque but also show how the rise of secular and satirical art during the Renaissance shaped attitudes that persist today.

Quinten Metsys, Portrait of an Old Woman, 1514-1524