The art history version of “you’d look prettier if you smiled more”
I was skeptical, but it seems that the story is true the way it’s framed. The painting was mistaken for a 19th century painting. Turns out it’s 16th century instead and the 19th century artist added on a whole piece of canvas (that ugly sky above her) to make it into a square rather than a rectangle, and obviously saw fit to make her smile while he was at it. Meaning yes, you can blame the Victorians for this one.
You’ll note the more vibrant colors, the more neutral expression common of this style and era (because who wants to hold a smile for hours of posing?), and the lack of potatoes and tomatoes as neither would have been in market at the time. The painting itself was low priority for its amount of damage and anonymous artist and might have never been restored if not for COVID, but now it’ll be on display, truer to its original form, and they think they’ve narrowed down who painted it.
