Having yourself painted and cutting men's heads off

On last week's episode of No Such Thing As A Fish, they said that women at *some point in history that I've forgotten - Tudor England?* enjoyed "having themselves painted as a biblical character in the middle of cutting a man's head off".

Ah, ambiguities. Have a think and see if you're as much of an idiot as me.

First, I recognised and chuckled at the obvious one: [in the middle of cutting a man's head off] can describe the time of the action of the painting - they were in the middle of this action when they stopped and had themselves painted. Clearly this is silly. It describes what the biblical character (Judith, obviously) was doing. She was [a biblical character in the middle of cutting a man's head off], and that's what they had themselves painted as. I'm an intelligent person, see, and I spotted this potential pitfall and navigated it proficiently.

Which makes my next misunderstanding all the more ridiculous. Now, as I'm sure you realised, these women were having their portraits painted, in the guise of Judith cutting off Holofernes' head. But as well as having their portrait painted, 'having themselves painted' could mean that someone was applying paint to them: compare 'having themselves painted blue'. And yes, dear reader, that is the meaning I leapt to, and retained until about halfway through the item when I realised the more sensible interpretation. Honestly, I despair of myself sometimes.