Exhibition: Permissible Beauty

The exhibition price is for the whole of Hampton Court Palace

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An immersive installation at Hampton Court Palace brings past and present together to explore this question and to celebrate a new chapter of British Beauty for the 21st century.

Permissible Beauty brings together the ‘Windsor Beauties’ and contemporary portraits of six leading figures in the Black Queer British community to examine shifting ideas of beauty.

Informed by art historian and musician David McAlmont’s musings on the art collections at the Palace, it features new portraiture by acclaimed photographer Robert Taylor. The contemporary sitters are performers, activists, models, artists and musicians, Le Gateau Chocolat, Son of a Tutu, Ebony Rose Dark, Karnage Kills, Julius Reuben and Winn Austin.

Part of the Royal Collection, the ‘Windsor Beauties’ are a series of 17th century portraits by Sir Peter Lely. They have been displayed at Hampton Court Palace since the 1830s. They were brought together in the early 1660s, by Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, and mother of Queen Mary II and Queen Anne.

The Windsor Beauties conform to the narrow beauty standards of the 1660s. Lely’s paintings have been criticised since their own day for being ‘good, but not like’, in the words of Samuel Pepys, because they subtly adjusted the features of the women to suit what was fashionable, like a modern digital filter.

They depict ten women who were prominent members of the royal court in the reign of Charles II, including his principal mistress Barbara Villiers. Other women who sat for the portraits included noted members of the nobility, such as Frances Stuart, who received attention for her beauty from the time she entered court. This display pairs her portrait in feminine clothes with a portrait of Frances made at the same time, when she was about 17, by Jacob Huysmans, which shows her dressed in the masculine clothes of an aristocratic soldier. This 17th Century example shows the long history of self-expression and authenticity in portraiture that speaks directly to the lives of the contemporary sitters.

The personal testimony of the contemporary sitters challenges and expands the narrow standards of beauty we have inherited from the past. Through photographs, film, interviews and performance they offer a more inclusive idea of beauty that is relevant to every person.

Included in palace admission, the installation – featuring photography, film and digital media alongside the historic paintings - is part of a project led by the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries at the University of Leicester in collaboration with Historic Royal Palaces – the charity that looks after Hampton Court Palace.