Masking women’s faces across history has a common denominator — the practice focuses on how society monitors female sexuality, and shows how often a woman’s place in society was equated with her sexuality. The creepy face mask known as a “Visard” in Early Modern Europe is a case in point.
This French painting from 1581 illustrates what such facial coverings looked like. As the late 17th century Elizabethan scholar Randal Holme defined, the Visard was “a mask . . . gentlewomen used to put over their faces when they travel to keep them from sun burning . . . “[It] covers the whole face . . . Holes for the eyes, a case for the nose and a slit for the mouth.”
Beauty standards in Europe emphasized women’s white skin, which demonstrated that they were wealthy because they never had to go outside and labor, like commoners. But these masks also were worn for non-outdoor occasions, such as attending the theater. As was very typical for such elite female beauty standards, the outré habits silenced the women who espoused them. In the case of Visard Masks, women’s lesser visibility was coupled with another effect: muteness. This is because frequently the masks were held in place not with ties, but with a button or bead that the wearer would grip with her teeth from inside the mask.
The Visard on the second slide is a rare example of extant masks, since usually fabric decays. It was found in the inside walls of a house in Northamptonshire in 2011, and dates from the 16th or 17th centuries. The outside is of black velvet, and the inside lining is silk — the bead to hold the mask in place was also found.
The Visard was designed to show a woman’s elite status, but at least some people of the time considered them deeply creepy. The author Phillip Stubbes wrote in 1583 that women, when “they use to ride abrod, they have invisories, or masks, visors made of velvet, wherewith they cover all their faces, having hikes made in them against their eyes, whereout they look. So that if a man, that knew not their guise before, should chaunce to meet one of them, he would think hee met a monster or a devil; for face hee can see none, but two brode holes against her eyes”.
