This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human.

Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fan,

so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes.

Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of

taun tons and wampas on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense

of the Sith rule of two. Listen to stuff to blow your mind on the IHeart Radio app, Apple

podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky.

Listener discretion advised.

Circa 1745, the rising French painter Marianne Loire received a commission.

A portrait of a noblewoman was not an unusual assignment, but her

sitter was an unusual noblewoman. In the finished portrait, Marianne's subject is seated in an

ornate chair with the perfect posture expected from one of her noble class. She wears a loose-fitting robe

l'Angley in a deep blue, lined with fur on the bodice and lace on the sleeves. A diamond brooch

is pinned to the ribbon around her throat, and the woman's cheeks are flushed with a deep rouge.

Her head is turned slightly to the right, and she smiles slightly at the viewer.

At first glance, it might be a depiction of any wealthy noble woman,

but the details of the portrait are where we can see the woman's complexity.

The table where she's resting her elbow is holding an open book, loose pages of a manuscript,

and in ororee, a mechanical model of the solar system. In the woman's left hand, she holds a white carnation, probably signaling

its traditional associations with pure love and motherhood, or its nature as a hybrid, cultivated

through human science. In the woman's right hand, if you look closely, you can see she's holding a compass,

the tool of the mathematician. In 18th century French portraiture, the positioning of the compass

...