Perceived Waist-to-Hip Ratio Predicts Attractiveness, Age, and Parity Judgments in Pre-Contemporary European Portraits of Clothed Women
Jeanne Bovet, Valentine Truchard, Charlotte Touzeau, Coralie Chevallier, Nicolas Baumard · 2026
Read Perceived Waist-to-Hip Ratio Predicts Attractiveness, Age, and Parity Judgments in Pre-Contemporary European Portraits of Clothed Women by Jeanne Bovet, Valentine Truchard, Charlotte Touzeau, Coralie Chevallier, Nicolas Baumard (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13427934.txt.
Description
Jeanne Bovet and co-authors examined in 2026 how waist shape shapes first views of women in old European portraits. Earlier work used plain photos of bare bodies, which leaves open whether the same views hold for dressed figures in rich scenes. The team used 608 painted women from 1650 to 1950.
More than fifteen hundred online viewers rated body shape, appeal, age, and the chance of past childbirth, from body or face alone. A narrower waist was tied to higher appeal, younger age, and lower chance of past birth. The links held after checks for pose, weight, face age, art school, and date. Portraits offered a hard test because dress and pose vary so much.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Jeanne Bovet, Valentine Truchard, Charlotte Touzeau, Coralie Chevallier, Nicolas Baumard |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 48 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |