A few decades ago, around the time she unveiled her breakthrough work The Dinner Party and formulated her animating question "What if women ruled the world?", artist Judy Chicago made a maquette of an enormous sculpture she wanted to build.

Titled: The Female Divine, it would be a reclining corpulent nude, revelling in her own fleshy abundance. At the time, Chicago couldn't get anyone to fund the piece. "Who would want to see that?" was the general drift.