You can use this work for any purpose without restriction under copyright law. Read more about this licence. Identified by comparison with 17th-century prints as a portrait of Barbara Ursler, born in Augsburg in , portrayed half-length directed to right, with long brown prominent hair on the skin of her entire head. Names given to such conditions at various times include hypertrichosis, hirsutism and Ambras syndrome.
She married a Dutchman, Johan Michael van Beck, who became her manager. Unlike the hirsute women who earned their living as courtiers alongside dwarfs and jesters, Barbara van Beck was exhibited internationally and became a celebrity through her travels.
Her itinerary included London where she was seen as a child by John Evelyn , Copenhagen , Paris , Rome , Milan , Augsburg , Frankfurt , London again when she was seen again by Evelyn and portrayed playing the organ in an etching by Richard Gaywood , and Beauvais She disappears from the record in London in , when she was seen by John Bullfinch, who wrote "This woman I saw in Ratcliffe Highway, in the year , and was satisfied that she was a woman".
Skip to main content Search the catalogue. Barbara van Beck. Oil painting, ca. Date: [approximately ] Reference: i Pictures. Available online. Public Domain Mark You can use this work for any purpose without restriction under copyright law. Credit Barbara van Beck. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection. About this work Description Identified by comparison with 17th-century prints as a portrait of Barbara Ursler, born in Augsburg in , portrayed half-length directed to right, with long brown prominent hair on the skin of her entire head.
Physical description 1 painting : oil on canvas ; canvas Related material Three other 17th-century portrait paintings of hirsute women exist in other collections: 1. Spanish Royal collection from ; passed to the Prado. Canvas x 61 cm. Antonietta Gonzalez painted by Lavinia Fontana, Canvas 57 x 46 cm. The hirsute Gonzalez family, originally from Tenerife, became courtiers of the Duke of Parma. There are also a number of depictions of Antonietta and members of her family in the cabinet of curiosities at Ambras Castle, Innsbruck, as a result of the collecting interests of the Archduke Ferdinand II.
