Fanning The ‘Judgment of Paris’: The Early Modern Beauty Contest

Abstract In this article I consider the ‘Judgment of Paris’ story that decorates the leaf of a fan made in the late seventeenth century. I review the popularity of this legend in seventeenth-century painting, music, and literature and explore how the concept of female beauty in competition was reflected in the practice of female portraiture in the period, particularly in the collections known as ‘beauties series’. I examine how some women (Elisabeth Charlotte d’Orléans, Sophia of Hanover, Marie Mancini Colonna and Hortense Mancini Mazarin) both resisted and participated in these early modern beauty contests, in their written commentary and in their activities as subjects and patrons of art.