Perceived Waist-to-Hip Ratio Predicts Traits Judgements in Pre-Contemporary European Portraits of Clothed Women

A well-established finding in Evolutionary Behavioural Sciences is that a low waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is judged as more attractive than a high WHR in women, a preference hypothesised to track female mate value. However, virtually all studies on the topic display nude or minimally clothed bodies, under highly standardised conditions, potentially exaggerating WHR’s influence in real-world contexts. We tested whether WHR-based judgements generalise to fully clothed women and to more ecologically valid conditions by analysing 608 painted female figures from European portraits (1650–1950), embedded in socially rich, minimally sexualised settings. Online Prolific observers (N = 1,525) independently estimated the body shape, attractiveness, age, and likelihood of previous childbirth from either the body or the face of the painted characters. Perceived WHR strongly predicted trait judgements: lower WHR was associated with higher attractiveness, younger perceived age, and lower perceived likelihood of previous childbirth. These relationships persisted after controlling for various variables, including posture, body orientation, perceived weight, and perceived facial age. Our findings show that WHR-based heuristics persist even in visually complex, clothed, and historically diverse depictions of women. They further suggest that fashion styles that exaggerate WHR may have functioned as strategic amplifiers of socially and reproductively relevant cues, with implications for theories of mate choice, social signalling, fashion history and cultural evolution.