Francisco DeGoya’s La Maja Desnuda was the first major work depicting a real naked, and sexual, woman - hair and all. Just a naked woman looking at you looking at her and smiling about it. Shocking! It was done around 1800 for the Spanish prime minister, and when he received it, he kept it locked in a private viewing room. Only very special guests got to see it. For his artistic efforts, Goya was later called before the Spanish Inquisition.
Prior to that painting, women were all painted clean of hair, and even Manet’s 1863 painting of Olympia (a prostitute) has her hand covering herself and her eyes just slightly askance.
I’m guessing it’s the combination of natural hair, and being directly addressed by the gaze of the portrait’s lusty subject that bothered the Mall. Oh dear, women are sexual creatures.
