The fashion for veiling (el tapado) emerged in Spain in the 16th century. While some women wore masks in court, the more prevalent fashion was to use a dark mantle to cover the head and body. Some ...

At first glance, the publishing and printing of prints in the late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Low Countries seems to have been dominated by men, who were sometimes succeeded by their widows.

Anti-Italian sentiment was rife in 16th-century France, where Italian women were considered “naturally inclined to political scheming, sexual deviance and poisoning,” writes McIlvenna.

A recently discovered painting by the 16th-century artist Lavinia Fontana being offered at a Sotheby’s Old Master sale on Thursday is thought to be a self-portrait of the artist painted while ...