Nicki Minaj Covers W Magazine As An 18th-Century Courtesan

Bringing her glamorous ways to another publication, Nicki Minaj adorns the cover of the November 2011 issue of W magazine.

The "Super Bass" hitmaker got artsy for her front page treatment, as she posed for a spread of pictures done up by famed artist Francesco Vezzoli.



Inside the magazine's pages, Vezzoli was asked what perked his interest when it came to working with Miss Minaj, to which he replied, "I wanted to play with the public image of a female hip-hop star. During my entire career, I have always been fascinated by powerful women in history. I have spent a lot of time researching the ways they were represented in art and how their images were used to mold the public imagination—and to convey aesthetic and philosophical ideas about beauty and sexual desire. My main interest has been to link the historical artistic approach to female representation to contemporary icons of the media era."

Vezzoli added, "In my most recent works, for example, I transformed Princess ­Caroline of Hanover into a Garbo-esque Queen Christina, I asked ­actress Eva Mendes to become three symbols of classical sculpture (Venus, Saint ­Teresa, and Paolina Borghese), and I framed Lady Gaga into a de ­Chirico–inspired robotic extravaganza. For W, I wanted to turn the lovely Nicki Minaj into a powdered 18th-century courtesan."

Also touching on how exactly he transformed the 28-year-old, Francesco said, "In her performances, Minaj makes very explicit and ­challenging use of her beauty and her body, so I thought of comparing her to some of the most famous courtesans in history: the Marquise de ­Montespan, Comtesse du Barry, Madame de Pompadour, and ­Madame Rimsky-­Korsakov. My idea was to reproduce four iconic portraits of some of the most fascinating females of the past in a series starring an American pop-culture role model. We tried to re-create those original portraits using similar furniture, props, and clothing, à la Visconti. Luckily enough, the result came out as surreal as it could be, just as I wished."