Fascinating history

As a consequence of wanting to know a bit more about Wallis Simpson, I found a new blog - or it's very old, actually, as a blog considered, as the last post was made in last decade... And most of it is about Rome and Greece and such, and slightly uninteresting, but there are a couple of post that made me interested.

The Duchess of Argyll and the Headless Men

Here's a bit more about the affair


Count Fersen and Marie Antoinette - Count Fersen and Marie Antoinette revisited

Altered portrait - eyes made smaller, nose longer and fatter, Habsburg lip given and hair blonded (she had a very pretty golden hair, which would have looked quite white powdered). Frankly, I don't think the paintings of her are THAT beautified. The painters had to make the people look themselves. Even if the skin was smoothed, eyes perhaps made a bit bigger and proportions tweaked a little, the changes were so small one shouldn't even bother thinking about them.

I think about Princess Royal, Anne of England, whose is supposed to look like a horse...

A very pretty horse that is :-) But she too has long face and nose and sort of fleshy lower lip, and even though her eyes are by no means small, they can give that perception.

The paintings made of Marie Antoinette later make me think of Maggie Smith.

She isn't really beautiful either, with her rather long and narrow face, but... frankly... none of these women is ugly.

Mad, Bad and Dangerous To Know

The Secret Meaning of Elizabethan Salads
So fascinating... symbolical foods taken to the next level... that could be used in a book.

The Seductive Lady Hamilton
Emma, Lady Hamilton, as seen by Louise-Elizabeth Vigée-Lebrun
about Lady Hamilton
Lady Hamilton; a regency romance era heroine

Christine de Pisan

Napoleon and Pauline Bonaparte - Incest?
Famous Affinities of History
the Coincidental Dandy: Wayward Venus; the Life of Marie-Pauline Bonaparte Borghése

Olympe de Gouges

Lady Godiva, peeping Tom and taxes

Boudicca, revenge of a warrior queen


Messalina, the worst wife in history?

Valeria Messalina's statue colored

Nicola Pagett as Messalina in Granada's The Caesars

I think Messalina could well have looked very much like her...

I think she is very pretty... Nicola, that is. Probably Messalina as well.

Theodora, the whore who became an empress

History and women: Nefertiti
Unusual Historicals and Michelle Moran; Nefertiti

The Great Courtesans
Marquerite, Violetta and Marie
Vintage Powder Room and Deauville
La Païva - pickled and preserved

Scandalous Women - blog

The Hero Workshop
Why are scandalous people more intersting than heroes?

Historical warrior women
Jean d'Arc - the wrong hero

Quaintrelles:

Marguerite, Countess of Blessington
Cora Pearl
Marchesa Luisa Casati
Coco Chanel
and Marlene Dietrich

P.S: Once again, Fascinating People -