The Hampton Court Beauties are one of two famous sets of portraits of beautiful women from the courts of Charles II and William and Mary.
They were painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller and now hang in the King’s Private Dining Room in the Lower King’s Apartments at Hampton Court Palace.
When these were painted in the 17th century, long before the days of Hello magazine, people were very excited about this new style of glamorous portrait, celebrating beautiful women at court.
Some observers, however, have been less than flattering in their comments.
A century after they were painted, the critic William Hazlett, unfairly tarnished them all with the same brush as a ‘set of kept-mistresses, painted, tawdry, showing off their theatrical or meretricious airs and graces…’
