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The YCBA, in partnership with Compton Verney, will host a symposium to increase understanding of the painting “Two Women Wearing Cosmetic Patches.” Topics include the painting’s provenance, attribution, and future display; the cloth trade in seventeenth-century England, Africa, and India; and evolving perceptions of beauty standards, including a keynote conversation focusing on cosmetic patches. The middle decades of the seventeenth century in Britain were characterized by radical political, religious, and social change. In this period, an unknown artist created a remarkable painting that spoke to fears and anxieties crystallizing around a perceived increase in moral laxity, gender transgression, and the insidious influence of foreigners. The painting depicts two women side by side, each wearing a conspicuous array of beauty patches. The woman on the left reprimands her companion with the words “I black with white bespott: y[o]u white w[i]th blacke this Evill / proceeds from thy proud hart, then take her: Devill.” Text and image combine to inveigh against the sins of pride, vanity, and worldly excess. The painting reminds viewers that sinful behavior leads to the devil and exhorts them to seek salvation.
Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park in Warwickshire, England, has loaned the painting to the YCBA for conservation treatment and inclusion in the museum’s ongoing technical study of the theory and practice of painting skin tones. It will be on view at the Yale University Art Gallery from August 20 through September 30, 2024, before returning to Compton Verney.
The symposium will be held at Hastings Hall, Yale School of Architecture, and online on September 27, 2024.
For more information, please email [email protected].
Register
Registration is recommended but not required to participate. Please register for online and in-person attendance for this event here. A link to livestream the program, and more information about joining us in person will be shared at a later date.
Top image
Unknown artist, Two Women Wearing Cosmetic Patches, ca. 1655, oil on canvas, Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park, Warwickshire, UK
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
180 York St, New Haven, CT 06511-8924, United States
