There’s a hairy wart on her cheek. Her nostrils flare like a chimpanzee’s and there’s something simian, too, about the distance between her nose and her mouth. Her forehead is crudely domed. Her ears stick out. However charitably we may try to observe her, it cannot be denied that the Ugly Duchess is unlovely. The question is: why? Painted in around 1513 in Antwerp, Quentin Massys’ portrait of an old woman has been a showstopper since at least 1869, when John Tenniel used her as the model for