Thaindian News

London, Mar 19 (ANI): An art historian and an herbalist have joined hands to recreate some of the creams and potions used by 15th-century women to enhance their looks.

Dr Jill Burke and Anna Canning tried cosmetics recipes based on the work of a Renaissance beauty expert, Caterina Sforza, in her ‘Book of Experiments’.

Burke believes the Renaissance preoccupations with a smooth skin, fresh breath and shiny hair are similar to those we have today, even though many of our ideas of what is beautiful have changed.

“A lot of the idea was to make sense of what was going on in the paintings,” the Scotsman quoted Burke, who said her interest was sparked by the art of the period, as saying.

“The idea was to understand what Renaissance people saw when they were looking at these paintings,” she said.

She joined art historians, literature and medicine experts at the Scottish National Galleries to try testing out the cosmetics.

“A lot of people imagine women in the Renaissance wore thick makeup - but that came later. What they were interested in was the quality of their skin,” Burke explained.

“A lot of the recipes are to do with getting rid of redness or marks on the skin caused by smallpox or syphilis. They liked the idea of having a white face and rosy cheeks. There was very little eye makeup,” she revealed.

Sforza, a powerful Renaissance beauty who was one of the models for Botticelli’s Primavera, wrote ‘A Book of Experiments’ advising women how to maintain their beauty.

By trying out some of Sforza’s recipes, Burke hopes to gain insight into the way beauty was perceived during the period.

“It was surprising to realise that a lot of their remedies were effective,” she added. (ANI)