During a recent tour of a garden of historic tulips, we were looking at some that date back to the turn of the last century with the variety name “Painted Lady,” and talking about the fact that the phrase would originally refer to a woman of less than pristine character. This got us wondering when the pejorative connotation of the phrase disappeared. For instance, the brightly colored Victorian houses known as painted ladies now – would they have been called that when they were originally built/adorned?
Tulips. Heh.
Well no, there’s nothing pejorative about it.
I believe “painted ladies” were originally theatre folk, not necessarily street ladies. It referred to the make-up, which most Victorian ladies didn’t wear.
I can’t find a reference right now.
Addendum to picunurse’s statement: Most female singers, dancers, and actors in the 19th century (in Europe) were semi-prostitutes. It was fairly well impossible to rise through the ranks without securing a count as a patron. For the most part the theater depended on such patrons, and so the girls had to keep them interested.
Actresses in the 19th century (at least in the US) were further down the social scale than prostitutes. Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth once used a woman becoming an actress as an example of how far she had fallen for being a single mother.
Scarlett O’Hara Hamilton starts using rouge right before she “sells” herself in marriage to Frank Kennedy to pay the taxes on Tara. Women who dyed their hair (like Belle “prostitute with a heart of gold” Watling) and used paint created a scandal back then.
I was always under the impression that it was Biblical in origin. A quick look doesn’t turn up the phrase “painted ladies”, but Jezebel was said to have painted her face before leading Ahab astray (II Kings 9:30), and I do seem to recall Jezebel being called a “painted lady” in consequence. From there it would be an easy step to make the equation of “painted lady” with harlot even though JKezebel wasn’t one – but she was trying to retain her own non-Hebrew worship and promote it, which would’ve been seen as just as bad, or worse). And from there to "painted lady’ for any prostitute.
but i assumed the use of the term for those 19th century tri-colored gingerbread houses was a playful use of the term (since they literally were painted). I never heard it used of tulips, but I’d think the same thing.
Actors were classed as vagabonds in Elizabethan England and, unless they were under the protection of a nobleman, could suffer all the harsh penalties applied to vagrants in those times. The stigma remained attached to acting for a long time, not completely dissipating until the 20th century. (In fact, the profession is still regarded with suspicion in some quarters).
What could someone possibly have against a perfectly innocent butterfly? 
Even today, the primary meaning of “painted lady” is still “prostitute”. Obviously a house, or a butterfly, or a flower isn’t a prostitute, but absent any other context, I wouldn’t assume it was referring to any of those. So then it’s just a question of whether prostitution is perjorative.
Apparently I wasn’t clear about my question. When did it become possible to use the phrase “painted lady” playfully to refer to a house, flower, or butterfly? You wouldn’t use the phrase “cheap streetwalker” or “two-bit tart” or “trashy ho” to refer to something brightly colored.
Well my first reaction was “what’s pejorative about a butterly”? So whore is not the primary meaning for me.
A Wiki entry says that “painted ladies,” as applied to houses, spread to the eastern US in the 1970s & 80s, and was originally used for the row of six Victorian houses on Steiner Street in San Francisco.
From the Wiki link:
Again, that begs the issue – if it is, indeed, true. If “painted lady” originally meant prostitute (or actress, or both), at what point did the negative connotation disappear to the extent that it could be used playfully? The tulip in the OP dates back to, I think, 1910 – did it (primarily) mean hooker at that point or not?
The first thing that springs to my mind is the Elton John song, Sweet Painted Lady.
Sweet Painted Lady
Guess it’s always been the same
Getting paid
For being laid
Guess that’s the name of the game, aaahh
Which I guess could be about having somewhat disturbing thoughts about flowers, but prostitution seems like a better fit.
I think the assertion that “this definiion is unrelated” is absurd. No one would’ve thought of applying as odd a term as “painted ladies” to those houses in San Francisco if the connotation of "painted ladies " = “prostitutes” hadn’t existed.