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Lady Godiva

Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry, UK

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John Collier, 1897

Romanticism
history painting

Lady Godiva was an 11th-century Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who, according to a legend dating at least to the 13th century, rode naked – covered only in her long hair – through the streets of Coventry to gain a remission of the oppressive taxation that her husband imposed on his tenants. The name "Peeping Tom" for a voyeur originates from later versions of this legend in which a man named Tom watched her ride and was struck blind or dead.

image of Lady Godiva
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