In 1616 Barnabe Rich complained that ‘we have spoyled the Venetian Curtizans of their alluring vanities, to decke our English women in the new fashion.’ Acknowledging the influence Venice had upon English self-presentation, Rich contributes to contemporary assumptions about the Italian city by aligning it with female sexuality and commerce. Rich also reminds us, in his reference to the Venetian courtesans, of the relationship within the English imagination between uncontrollable female desire and Venice itself that fuelled much of its dramatic representation. The painted courtesan embodies the connections between cosmetics, female sexuality and commercial exchange. One of the dedicatory poems on the opening pages of Lewes Lewkenor's 1599 translation of Contareno's The Commonwealth and Gouernment of Venice describes the city as a maiden that has been misled into vanity by the corruption of the age:

Paradoxically, Thomas Coryat's criticism of the cosmetic practices of the Venetian courtesans is at times curiously detailed, giving English women the opportunity to emulate the rituals that are being denigrated.