The Fallen Woman

Fascinating exhibition at the Foundling Museum about how the Victorian concept of the Fallen Woman was depicted in the art and literature of the time and contrasting that with reality as seen through the museum’s archives.

The first section concentrated on images in art while telling the history of the idea. It pointed out that the 1836 Marriage Act had made marriage in registry offices easier so that it was easier to be respectable! It talked about how the growth in urban life made many women more vulnerable. I loved a picture called “Breakfasting Out” by Robert Dowling which showed a shop girl buying a coffee from a stall on her way to work and a gentleman eying her up, as my grandmother would have said! Beware Starbucks girls!

In an extra room upstairs they had, of course, borrowed “Found Drowned” by Watts which has to appear in any show on this topic or Victorian morality generally. It was shown by a petition to the hospital from a mother who said that the father of her child had told her to drown herself!

Most moving were the petitions from the women telling the real stories. The hospital had changed its admittance policy in the 19th century to focus on restoring respectability to unmarried mothers. Many of these were shown in a small section of the gallery playing a sound installation by Steven Lewins using the names and word of the women against a new arrangement of the Foundling Hospital Anthem by Handel. It gave a real sense of the ghosts of the past talking to you.

Closes on 3 January 2016.

Review
Telegraph

 

 

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