Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World. / To which are added rules for determining the precise figure, the degree of beauty, the habits, and the age of women, notwithstanding the aids and disguise of dress.

by Anonymous

OF AGE.

External indications of age are required chiefly where the face is veiled, or where the woman observed precedes the observer and may reasonably excite his interest.

In either of these cases, if the foot and ankle have lost a certain moderate plumpness, and assumed a certain sinewy or bony appearance, the woman has generally passed the period of youth.

If in walking, instead of the ball or outer edge of the foot first striking the ground, it is the heel which does so, then has the woman in general passed the meridian of life. Unlike the last indication, this is apparent, however the foot and ankle may be clothed.—The reason of this indication is the decrease of power which unfits the muscles to receive the weight of the body by maintaining the extension of the ankle-joint.

Exceptions to this last indication are to be found chiefly in women in whom the developments of the body are proportionally much greater, either from a temporary or a permanent cause, than those of the limbs, the muscles of which are consequently incapable of receiving the weight of the body by maintaining the extension of the ankle-joint.

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THE IDEAL OF FEMALE BEAUTY;
OR A
DESCRIPTION OF THE FAMOUS STATUE
OF THE
VENUS DE MEDICI.

The Venus de Medici at Florence is the most perfect specimen of ancient sculpture remaining; and is spoken of as the Model of Female Beauty. It was so much a favorite of the Greeks and Romans, that a hundred ancient repetitions of this statue have been noticed by travellers. This statue is said to have been found in the forum of Octavia at Rome. It represents woman at that age when every beauty has just been perfected.

“The Venus de Medici at Florence,” says a distinguished writer, “is like a rose which, after a beautiful daybreak, expands its leaves to the first ray of the sun, and represents that age when the limbs assume a more finished form and the breast begins to develop itself.”

The size of the head is sufficiently small to leave that predominance to the vital organs in the chest, which, as already said, makes the nutritive system peculiarly that of woman. This is the first and most striking proof of the profound knowledge of the artist, the principles of whose art taught him that a vast head is not a constituent of female beauty. In mentioning the head it is scarcely possible to avoid noticing the rich curls of hair.

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The eyes next fix our attention by their soft, sweet, and glad expression. This is produced with exquisite art. To give softness, the ridges of the eyebrows are rounded. To give sweetness, the under eyelid, which I would call the expressive one, is slightly raised. To give the expression of gladness or of pleasure, the opening of the eyelids is diminished, in order to diminish, or partially to exclude, the excess of those impressions, which make even pleasure painful. Other exquisite details about those eyes, confer on them unparallelled beauty. Still, this look is far from those traits indicative of lasciviousness, with which some modern artists have thought to characterize their Venuses.