User:Jahsonic/Notes on pubic hair in Western art  

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My recent post of Goya's Maja desnuda in which I referred to Cranach as the earliest depiction of pubic hair in art prompted several savvy responses by usual suspect Paul Rumsey.

I am especially greatful for pointing me to an article[1] by Alan Jacobs, author of Original Sin: a Cultural History with a relevant section on Adam and Eve in art.

The article features a collection of fig leaf images (illustration)[2]. The article clearly shows that Hubert and Jan van Eyck's depiction of Eve[3] in a panel of the Ghent Altarpiece (ca. 1432) this is the earliest and at the same time fullest bush (left column, bottom) in Early Modern European art.

Paul Rumsey:

Pubic hair in paintings... the book Witches Lust and the Fall of Man. The Strange Phantasies of Hans Baldung Grien has a number of pictures with pubic hair which pre-date the Cranach by a few years I think.... (and not hidden under a cloth as in the Cranach)

• "Death and a Woman" (Basel) -clear coils of pubic hair.
• "Death and the Maiden" 1517 (Basle)- very clear pubic hair.
• Copy after Baldung in Munich -" Nude woman Holding a Mirror" - she holds a mirror between her legs, she has pubic hair which is also reflected in the mirror.
• After Baldung Grien, "Womens Bath with Mirror" Karlsruhe - two young women and an old woman, one of the young women has bushy pubic hair which she brushes, the old woman has scissors.
• There is also a drawing by Baldung of a woman with pubic hair, "Death and Maiden" 1515. Berlin.

I know of four Baldung Grien paintings from about 1515 with very clear pubic hair.

I think the Eve in Van Eyck's Ghent Alterpiece has more pubic hair than the Goya. See the bottom right hand detail on this page...[4]