Earliest Painting Of A Transvestite Uncovered

C'mon, when's the next time you're going to see a headline like this?

LiveScience and MSNBC.com reported today that an 18th-century portrait originally sold to a British gallery as a "woman in a feathered hat", is actually portraying a man dressed as a woman, becoming the earliest known painting of a transvestite. The painting has been renamed the "Chevalier D'Eon," and is currently hanging in London's Philip Mould Ltd. gallery.

Philip Mould (director of the gallery) said it was something about the "muscularity of his face" and a "suggestion of stubble" that struck him as odd. Once the painting had been cleaned and restored, "his masculine traits became far more manifest." Mould's research team discovered that the man on the painting is Charles D'Eon, who lived the latter part half of his life as a transvestite, during a time when it was essentially unheard of in the 19th century. As you can imagine there's more to this fascinating cross-dressing story, which you can read about here.