(Pig-Faced Lady, English) | The Enduring Legend of the Reclusive Pig-Faced Lady

(Pig-Faced Lady, English)

Fairburn (Senior’s) Portrait of the Pig-Faced Lady, of Manchester Square. [London: ca. 1815] 

Broadside (392 x 289 mm). Handcolored engraving showing the pig-faced lady seated demurely, stated second edition, with additions; not examined out of frame, a few small closed tears and losses to edges. Framed and glazed with Plexiglas. 

"This most extraordinary Female is about Twenty Years of Age ... Her body and limbs are of the most perfect and beautiful shape, but her head and face resembles that of a Pig."

The pig-faced lady was a fairly common magical tale, particularly popular in England at the time of this commemorative broadside. As belief in the actuality of such swinish women implausibly took root in the nineteenth century, itinerant showman capitalized on such rumors by displaying bears in the the guise of pig-faced women — closely shaven and outfitted in a frock, gloves, shawl, wig and bonnet. 

REFERENCE:

Exemplars, p. 117; EE pp. 70-71; LP&FW, p. 20