THE HAIRY MAID AT THE HARPSICHORD

Her name was Barbara Urslerin, and she really did play the harpsichord. When John Evelyn saw her being exhibited in London in 1657, the great diarist was amazed by her strange appearance:

The Hairy Maid, or Woman whom twenty years before I had also seene as a child: her very Eyebrowes were combed upwards & all her forehead as thick & even as growes on any woman’s head, neatly dress’d: There comes also two locks very long out of Each Eare: she had also a most prolix beard & moustachios, with long locks of haire growing on the very middle of her nose, exactly like an Iceland Dog: the rest of her body not so hairy, yet exceedingly long in comparison, armes, neck, breast and back; the colour of light browne, & fine as well dressed flax.

Barbara Urslerin was born near the village of Kempten, not far from Augsburg in Germany, in February 1629.