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| Florence Claxton, Women's Work, 1861 |
The current issue of the British Art Journal carries an extensive
and welcome article on Florence Claxton’s satirical painting Woman’s Work: A
Medley, which presents an almost
Hogarthian panorama of the constraints and obstacles experienced by middle
class women in the mid-nineteenth century. Pictorially centred on a fleshy, leisured fellow surrounded by adoring subservient females, it’s a most useful illustration, frequently cited. But it's been virtually out of
reach to scholars and critics, as its ownership is unpublished, it’s not been
exhibited since 1861 and the few available reproductions have been small and
rather murky, given the number and density of figures within the scene.
So Charlotte Yeldham’s in-depth study makes this ‘most daring and ambitious’
picture newly available for discussion by art historians and social historians. We learn that it is 750mm wide and was
exhibited in large and ornate gilt frame at the Portland Gallery in London in
spring 1861. That is was ‘used in direct
support of the campaign for greater work opportunities’ led by first-wave
feminists Anna Jameson, Barbara Bodichon, Bessie Parkes, Emily Faithfull. That the crinolined woman crouching by the
closed door of the medical profession has blood on face and hands represents
not only aspiring female doctors but also a ‘kneeling, weeping’ fallen woman, with
tell-tale loose hair, driven by destitution, shame and disease into sex work.
Yeldham’s correlation of the numerous vignettes within Woman’s
Work with contemporary campaigns around marriage, education, emigration and
the rest is very thorough. Detailed
exposition of the all background figures is given and previous misconceptions [mostly
due to poor earlier images] are corrected.
One small query remains: the identity of the blonde artist on the escape
ladder tugging at Rosa Bonheur’s skirts.
Could this be Claxton herself? The
only potential portrait I can find shows her with fair curly hair.
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