Her face is framed by wavy brown hair extensions, her filled lips pursed towards the viewer. It could be a description of an Instagram post, but the touched-up (修改过的) beauty is Diana Cecil, an English noblewoman who belongs to a powerful family at the Jacobean court. Experts at English Heritage have discovered that her portrait had been altered by restorers to enhance certain features, suggesting that our modern beauty standards might not be so modern after all.
The great-grand-daughter of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, one of Elizabeth I's closest advisers, Diana was considered one of the great beauties of her age. Yet it seems a later artist had other ideas. A restorer, probably in the 19th century, worked on the painting after it was damaged from being rolled sideways. It seems they also took the opportunity to alter the noblewoman's face, enlarging her lips and lowering her hairline to reduce the size of her forehead.
Now, following careful conservation work, Cecil's original appearance has been restored, with the full-length portrait-painted by Cornelius Johnson when Cecil was about 31. The conservation team discovered the changes made to the Johnson painting after removing a yellowing layer of oily liquid that had covered its original, more vivid colors. They also surprisedly found the artist's signature, and a date that had been signed in the portrait's curtain suggesting it was finished in1634 and not 1638 as previously thought.
According to Alice Tate-Harte, a conservator at English Heritage, it was not uncommon for people to ‘sweeten' old paintings in the 19th and early 20th centuries. "Conservation wasn't a profession, they weren't working in institutions with salaries," she said. "They were artist restorers and they had a bit more flexibility to prettify and beautify, whereas we have a lot more ethics today. we must keep our retouching to a minimum. I hope I've done Dian a justice by removing those additions and presenting her natural face to the world."
