Facing Decay: Beauty, Aging, and Cosmetics in Early Modern Europe

The pursuit of youth and beauty transcends time periods. As now, women in the early modern period also sought to turn back the clock using cosmetic recipes promising beauty and clear, younger-looking skin.

Facing Decay systematically examines early modern visual art, anti-aging recipes, and a range of other writings to investigate the period’s obsession with youth and beauty--and the corollary anxiety about age and decay. It provides the first examination of not only why but how early modern women sought to fight the appearance of old age. Author Erin Griffey argues that youthful skin was not simply a cosmetic pursuit; it was regarded as a signal of health, and thus beauty regimens intersected with medical practice. She takes beauty and its decay seriously and links therapeutic cosmetics to not only medical knowledge but also scientific ingenuity, social benefit, and cultural agency.

This interdisciplinary book negotiates both the representations and the practical applications of beauty culture in early modern Europe through the history of art, society, medicine, and science. It is a fascinating and frequently surprising work that should appeal to anyone interested in the history of women, aging, medicine, beauty culture, and beauty recipes.

Erin Griffey is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Auckland. She is the author of On Display: Henrietta Maria and the Materials of Magnificence at the Stuart Court

and editor of Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women.