Stlukesguild

Figures look obese...I guess then obesity was a status symbol...

Thanks St Lukes for the pictures and commentary. Very interesting.

Interesting that by the nearly anorexic standards of today's fashion models Rubens' women would be considered "obese". Of course the term "Rubenesque" has long meant "voluptuous". There definitely was a preference at the time for the voluptuous. It was not merely a status symbol... it gested health and fecundity as well as well as wealth at a time when it was easy to be thin: it was called starvation.