The Court of Charles II wasn’t merely a playhouse for the King’s sexcapades. There was art, too! But as with everything Chuckie II related, the art was provocative as well. It all started with Anne, Duchess of York and Albany, wife of the future James II, whose standing at court was not immediately awesome upon the Restoration of the Monarchy. But she was good friends with the painter Peter Lely, as well as fellow reputationally-challenged court lady Barbara Villiers. Anne connected the two, the portrait was painted, and then Anne engaged in a bit of a power play at court by choosing which women would sit for portraits.
The paintings were widely copied and distributed in taverns and such, a sort of early version of dirty magazines in perhaps the trashiest court in English history.
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Sources
The Most Alluring Women of 17th Century England (slate.com)
The Windsor Beauties are a famous collection of 11 paintings by Sir Peter Lely, painted in the early to mid-1660s (myartblogcollection.blogspot.com)
The seventeenth century supermodels (womensweekly.com.au)
