Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: The Ugly Duchess

  • The beauty of nature and the nature of beauty

    Michael BaumLondon, England Do not all charms fly / At the mere touch of cold philosophy? / There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: / We know her woof, her texture; she is given / In the dull catalogue of common things. / Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings / Conquer all mysteries by rule…

  • About face: From revulsion to compassion

    Sylvia R. KarasuNew York City, New York, United States “I was too ugly to go to school,” writes Lucy Grealy in her painful memoir Autobiography of a Face.1 At the age of nine, Grealy was diagnosed with a rare Ewing’s sarcoma of her jaw that necessitated disfiguring surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. “I was my face,”…

  • Quentin Massys – The Ugly Duchess

    Flemish artist Quentin Massys (1465–1523) was born in Louvain and worked in Antwerp, where he painted many exquisite works of art. In 1513, he painted the portrait of An Old Woman, popularly known as The Ugly Duchess. Perhaps the best known of his works, it may be a portrait of Margaret, countess of Tyrol and…