The "Bearded Lady of Naples"

The title of this painting is simply "Bearded Woman" and is from the year 1631. The painting is now in the permanent collection of the Museo de Tavera in Toledo. The subjects were husband and wife, Felix and Magdalena Ventura. Even before the painting, Magdalena Ventura was famous. She was not really from Naples, but rather from somewhere in the nearby Abruzzi. She was already a grown woman with several children before her beard started to grow in thick and full like a man's beard. When the Duke of Alcala, the Spanish viceroy of Naples at the time, heard about her, he invited her to come into the big city and sit for a painting by de Ribera, the Duke's own court artist and one of the leading painters of the time. Magdalena's fame spread such that she was mentioned in court correspondence throughout Italy...

Presumably the lady developed an androgen-secreting ovarian tumor.