It’s something weird I’ve been thinking for a while, but do we know anything about the breast sizes of important or famous women in the past? I know occasionally you’ll see reference to a famous historical man having a big penis but I don’t think I’ve ever read anything pointing out a famous woman having big breasts (Big breasts in this discussion will be DD or bigger, granted bra sizes weren’t around back then but it’s at least what I’m thinking of when I think big breasts)
I know corsets and stuff really did make chests seem a lot bigger than they actually were back then, so actual descriptions or paintings of non-corseted women would be helpful. In terms of “past” generally I think pre-1900 but pictures of women pre-1950 would also be helpful.
Well, the OP did say before 1900. Otherwise we could talk about Milton Berle and Forrest Tucker.
Lillian Russell is certainly the most famous busty woman in show business pre-1900. But I have a suspicion that the OP is talking about modern standards, which prescribe a tiny waist. Russell peaked at 200 pounds. She was curvaceous rather than fat, but she’d never be a Playboy centerfold. And she might be considered Rubeneque, but that does not imply large breasts. If you look at Ruben’s women you see curves mostly in the waist and thighs. They are not very busty at all, proportionally. I don’t know of any era before ours that honored skinny women with large breasts as the epitome of beauty, so it would be difficult to find portraits that depicted them that way. The artist would have nudged the figure to contemporary standards. Corsets certainly compressed waists so that the breasts were greatly emphasized, but that presumably was done because the breasts were smallish to begin with.
Going back into old movies…I couldn’t tell you sizes, but what about Jayne Mansfield or maybe Marilyn or Mae West or come to think of that, the infinite amounts of pin up girl paintings.
While “busty women of the past”* would probably make an excellent PhD thesis topic, I think the OP needs to take into account changing views of female pulchritude for the perceived dearth of this quality in olde times (for instance, cinema of the 1920s-1940s appeared to value other feminine qualities over chest expansion. Especially in '20s flappers.)
*Another thesis topic (arguably more limited) is the extent to which the term “busty” is utilized by women rather than men.
I think it’s going to be extremely difficult to find any good information from the pre-photography era. Paintings usually try to make the subject look better than they actually do, whatever “looking better” means, so a painting of a woman will reflect the society’s preference for bust sizes (large or small) as much as the woman’s actual proportions.
Evolution does not move quickly. It is pretty safe to assume that south Asian women have long (that is, tens of thousands of years) had generally larger breasts than east Asian women. A more interesting question is whether this represents sexual selection from men.
I’m not going to provide any links, but the OP can search terms like Vicotrian pornography or 19th century erotica and see plenty of photos of actual pre-20th century naked women, with boobs of all sizes.
Wasn’t Marie Antionette rather large-chested? At a museum in france, they have porcelain cups that were molded from her breasts (nipple included), for her.
I looked for and could not find a Mme Elofe who was Marie Antoinette’s milliner, or anything else. Rose Bertin was her milliner her entire queenly life.
I can’t find any mention of her measurements other than on that forum and a couple of similar ones. Others talk about her being thin and petite but that could mean anything, and those are unsourced as well.