Victorian Women Research Paper

Women Artists in the Victorian Period: The Struggle for Recognition

During the Victorian period there were many women artists still struggling for artistic recognition in a patriarchal society. This essay considers multiple female artists including Henrietta Ward, Joanna Mary Boyce, and Emma Brownlow and their struggles in the art world of the period. These women struggled to gain patrons, to receive training from art schools, and to sell their paintings in the male-dominated art world. Many women artists became genre painters because there were fewer barriers and so it was most convenient type for women to practice. Because of the patriarchal society of the Victorian period, women artists had to use other means to exhibit and sell their art.

In the foreground a girl is seen dressed as the May Queen and others are assisting her. In the background the Red Lion public house, Langley, is seen. Henrietta is showing the model of a queen and the model of the correct woman just like the Queen is depicted. (Nunn, Pamela Gerrish. Victorian Women Artists). In God Save the Queen, Henrietta shows a women playing a piano while her children sang the song “God Save the Queen.” You can see that the woman is depicted as a mother figure and is following the family model of Queen Victoria (Nunn, Pamela Gerrish. Victorian Women

Victorian Women Artists). Most children brought to the Foundling Hospital remained there until apprenticeship in their late teens. The Hospital encouraged mothers to leave a memento or “token” which they could later identify to reclaim their child. Emma Brownlow shows the rare scene of a foundling “restored” to a parent or relative. In The Sick Room, it shows a scene of a sick child being checked on a man and a women along with children. These paintings showed women in ideal but natural ways in the real world. (Nunn, Victorian Women