“The Bearded Woman” by Jusepe de Ribera – La Mujer Barbuda
The Bearded Woman (La Mujer Barbuda) (1631) painting by Jusepe de Ribera is an intriguing and thought-provoking composition. It touches on ideas around gender, femininity, and concepts of beauty and ugliness. The article below will discuss this 17th-century Baroque portrait.
Artist Abstract: Who Was Jusepe de Ribera?
Jusepe de Ribera was a Spanish artist born in Játiva (Xàtiva) in Valencia in 1591; he died in Naples in September 1652. He painted religious and mythological subjects, and returned repeatedly to scenes of martyrdom rendered with unsparing physical detail.
He was influenced by the Italian artist Caravaggio and his techniques with light and dark, and he also produced etchings and drawings. Ribera moved to Naples in 1616 and lived there until he died. The city was then ruled by Spain, and its viceroys became his important patrons.
Some of his artworks include “Drunken Silenus” (1626), “Apollo and Marsyas” (1637), “The Martyrdom of Saint Philip” (1639), and “The Clubfoot” (1642).
A Timeline of Jusepe de Ribera’s Life and Key Works
- 1591: Born in Játiva (Xàtiva), Valencia, Spain.
- 1616: Moves to Naples, then ruled by Spain; the city’s viceroys become his important patrons.
- 1626: Paints Drunken Silenus.
- 1631: Paints The Bearded Woman, commissioned by Fernando Afán de Ribera y Téllez-Girón, Third Duke of Alcalá and Viceroy of Naples.
- 1637: Paints Apollo and Marsyas.
- 1639: Paints The Martyrdom of Saint Philip.
- 1642: Paints The Clubfoot.
- 1652: Dies in Naples in September.
The Bearded Woman (1631) by Jusepe de Ribera in Context
| Artist | Jusepe de Ribera |
| Date Painted | 1631 |
| Also Known As | La Mujer Barbuda; Magdalena Ventura With Her Husband and Son |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Genre | Portrait painting |
| Period/Movement | Baroque |
| Dimensions (cm) | 196 x 127 |
| Series/Versions | N/A |
| Where Is It Housed? | Owned by the Fundación Casa Ducal de Medinaceli, Spain; on long-term deposit at the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, after years on show at the foundation’s Hospital de Tavera in Toledo |
| What It Is Worth | No price available |
Contextual Analysis: A Brief Socio-Historical Overview
The bearded woman was Magdalena Ventura, from the town of Accumoli, then counted part of the Abruzzi region in the Kingdom of Naples. The Latin inscription Ribera painted into the picture states that she bore three sons to her husband, Felice de Amici, and that her beard began to grow when she was 37.
She sat for the portrait at the age of 52, nursing an infant, with her husband standing behind her shoulder. The inscription adds that she had already lost the three sons she bore to Felice de Amici, so who the child is remains disputed.
The two stone tablets beside the couple (to their left, our right) carry the rest of that account. The lower one dates the work to February 1631 and has Ribera name himself a Spaniard marked with the cross of Christ and a second Apelles of his own day, painting from life by order of Fernando Afán de Ribera y Téllez-Girón, Third Duke of Alcalá and Spanish Viceroy of Naples. The Duke collected people, objects and subject matter in art that struck him as out of the ordinary.
The upper tablet opens with the words En magnum naturae miraculum: behold a great wonder of nature.
Beauty, Ugliness, and a Taste for Oddities
Ribera was working for a market that already existed. Juan Sánchez Cotán had painted Brígida del Río, the bearded woman of Peñaranda, in 1590, and Velázquez portrayed the dwarfs and jesters of Philip IV’s court in Madrid in the following decades. Wealthy patrons paid for likenesses of people whose bodies were considered extraordinary, and those sitters had little say in how they were shown.
Where Renaissance figure painting built on idealized proportion, Ribera works from the particular body in front of him, wrinkles, receding hairline and all.
Hormones and Hirsutism
Bearded women were shown at fairs and courts across 17th-century Europe, and ridicule was a common part of that display. Ribera’s picture sits awkwardly in that tradition: it is built like a formal Baroque period portrait, and nothing in it invites laughter.
Writers on the painting have suggested hirsutism (male-pattern hair growth in a woman, usually driven by an excess of androgens), or, less often proposed, hypertrichosis, a generalised overgrowth of hair that is not hormone-driven. A firm diagnosis cannot be drawn from a painting: what survives is a record of how Magdalena Ventura looked at 52, not a medical examination.
Formal Analysis: A Brief Compositional Overview
Subject Matter: Visual Description
Both figures stand and look straight at us. Magdalena Ventura is in the foreground, and her long, thickly set black beard and moustache are the first thing the eye meets; her chest is open, as if she is ready to nurse the child in her arms.
| What you see | What it does in the picture |
| Long black beard and moustache | The reason the portrait was commissioned, and the feature that reads as male |
| Bared breast, set high and near the middle of the chest, with the infant at it | States the sitter’s sex, which her face does not |
| Felice de Amici behind her right shoulder | His shorter beard and shadowed face keep attention on his wife |
| Spindle wound with wool, on the upper tablet | An emblem of women’s domestic work |
| A shell beside it, described by some writers as the head of a distaff | Read as a further sign of womanhood, and by some as an allusion to a doubled nature |
| Two stone slabs, or steles, with Latin lettering | Give her name, town, age and the patron’s |
| Plain wall in a neutral color | No setting and no props, so there is nothing to look at but the family |
Under her hat the hair has receded at the front, a detail Ribera records as plainly as the beard.
Color
The color scheme is dark, with strong contrasts between lit and shadowed areas. Magdalena’s figure is in the light, her husband is in the shadows, and a softer light picks out the lettering on the stone slabs.
This technique is known as tenebrism: a near-black ground broken by a narrow, raking light that models only what the painter wants seen.
It was a manner associated above all with Caravaggio, whose work in Naples and Rome shaped Ribera’s own.
Texture
Ribera’s brushwork is thickly applied and closely observed, from the weave and folds of the fabrics to the lined skin of Magdalena’s forehead and the coarse hair of the beard.
Line
Vertical and horizontal lines are implied rather than drawn. The standing figures and the stacked slabs set up the verticals, which also suit the upright canvas.
Horizontal lines are implied by the baby lying in Magdalena’s arms and by the ruled rows of lettering on the stone slabs.
Shape and Form
Organic and geometric shapes play against one another: the rounded, naturalistic forms of the figures sit beside the flat rectangles of the stone slabs.
The figures’ heads read as ovals, lengthened further by their beards.
Space
Depth comes from shadow and highlight rather than architecture. Magdalena stands well forward, almost in the viewer’s space, and her husband is set back at an angle rather than squarely behind her, so that his face stays visible.
How the Painting Is Seen Today
The painting is now read less as a curiosity than as a portrait that refuses to caricature its sitter. Magdalena Ventura holds the viewer’s eye with a steady, grave expression, the pose and scale are those given to noble sitters, and the inscription records her name, her town and her family rather than presenting her as an anonymous marvel. Against that, the commission itself came from a collector of oddities, and she stands where she was placed. Both things are true of the same picture, which is much of why it still questions what beauty meant beyond the ideals of the Renaissance period.
What the picture documents is a commission, an inscription and a face. Sympathy, spectacle, a challenge to ideas of gender: these are readings later viewers have brought to it, not intentions Ribera left on record.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who Painted The Bearded Woman?
Jusepe de Ribera, the Spanish Baroque artist working in Naples, painted The Bearded Woman (1631), also known as La Mujer Barbuda. It is an oil on canvas commissioned by Fernando Afán de Ribera y Téllez-Girón, Third Duke of Alcalá, who was Viceroy of Naples at the time.
Where Can You See The Bearded Woman?
The painting belongs to the Fundación Casa Ducal de Medinaceli and has been on long-term deposit at the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid; before that it hung in the foundation’s Hospital de Tavera in Toledo. Deposits and displays change, so it is worth checking the museum’s collection page before travelling to see it.
Who Is Depicted in Jusepe de Ribera’s The Bearded Woman?
Three people are shown: Magdalena Ventura of Accumoli, an Italian woman aged 52 at the sitting, her husband Felice de Amici behind her, and an infant in her arms whom she is nursing; the inscription says the three sons she had borne him had died earlier, and the child’s identity is disputed.
Why Is the Painting Also Called Magdalena Ventura With Her Husband and Son?
That title names the sitters instead of the beard, and it is the one used by the collection that owns the work. La Mujer Barbuda, or The Bearded Woman, is the older popular title, which is why both turn up in books and museum records for the same canvas.
What Art Techniques Was Jusepe de Ribera Known For?
Jusepe de Ribera was influenced by the Italian Baroque artist Caravaggio and how his techniques depicted the contrasts between light and dark. The techniques are known as tenebrism and chiaroscuro. In The Bearded Woman painting, this is evident in the dark, almost black, background.
Alicia du Plessis is a multidisciplinary writer. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in Art History and Classical Civilization, as well as two Honors, namely, in Art History and Education and Development, at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. For her main Honors project in Art History, she explored perceptions of the San Bushmen’s identity and the concept of the “Other”. She has also looked at the use of photography in art and how it has been used to portray people’s lives.
Alicia’s other areas of interest in Art History include the process of writing about Art History and how to analyze paintings. Some of her favorite art movements include Impressionism and German Expressionism. She is yet to complete her Masters in Art History (she would like to do this abroad in Europe) having given it some time to first develop more professional experience with the interest to one day lecture it too.
Alicia has been working for artincontext.com since 2021 as an author and art history expert. She has specialized in painting analysis and is covering most of our painting analysis.
Learn more about Alicia du Plessis and the Art in Context Team.
Cite this Article
Alicia, du Plessis, ““The Bearded Woman” by Jusepe de Ribera – La Mujer Barbuda.” Art in Context. June 22, 2023. URL: https://artincontext.org/the-bearded-woman-by-jusepe-de-ribera/
du Plessis, A. (2023, 22 June). “The Bearded Woman” by Jusepe de Ribera – La Mujer Barbuda. Art in Context. https://artincontext.org/the-bearded-woman-by-jusepe-de-ribera/
du Plessis, Alicia. ““The Bearded Woman” by Jusepe de Ribera – La Mujer Barbuda.” Art in Context, June 22, 2023. https://artincontext.org/the-bearded-woman-by-jusepe-de-ribera/.
