True frontal alopecia in 17th-century paintings.

Paintings often show women with a clearance of the frontal hairline. We previously remarked how this was a form of pseudoalopecia that was voluntarily caused by women who shaved the frontal part of their hair for fashionable and esthetic reasons. In this paper, we emphasize in a second set of paintings showing a true alopecia that was caused by traction of the hair due to a tight hairstyle and was culturally favored in the 17th century.