Ideal beauty is a concept that artists have tried to achieve in portraiture since ancient times.  Zeuxis, the 5^th-century _B.C.E. Greek artist, allegedly painted a portrait of Helen of Troy.  It is important to note that supposedly Helen did not pose for him herself.  This imaginary portrait tells a narrative of the search for the ideal beauty.  This story was a popular subject in the 19^th century, as artist Victor Mottez depicts Zeuxis Choosing his Models.  Pliny the Elder’s Natural History recounts the narrative of the search as follows:

…albeit he [Zeuxis] was so scrupulously careful that when he was going to produce a picture for the city of Girgenti to dedicate at the public cost in the temple of Lacinian Hera he held an inspection of maidens of the place paraded naked and chose five, for the purpose of reproducing in the picture the most admirable points in the form of each.¹

Helen of Troy was considered the most beautiful woman and so Zeuxis had difficulty finding a muse.  To solve the problem, he summoned five attractive girls, merged their best features, and developed an early method for finding an “ideal beauty.”  Zeuxis set the foundation for generalizing women because he inferred that particular qualities from many women would create an “ideal beauty;” but what was the ideal beauty according to the 16^th century in Venice?

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1. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1938-63), XXXV, 64.