Maternal Breast-Feeding and Its Substitutes in Nineteenth-Century French Art

Gal Ventura (Ph.D. 2009) is a senior lecturer in the art history department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is a cultural art historian, and deals mainly with socio-medical aspects of family, maternity and death in nineteenth-century French art. She published numerous articles on motherhood in art, including Crying over Spilt Milk (Magnes, 2013), and is currently writing a book on babies' sleep in nineteenth-century French art.

• ContentsPrefaceList of IllustrationsPart 1: Mothers, Wet Nurses and Feeding Bottles1 The History of Breast-Feeding in France1 The Return to Maternal Breast-Feeding2 Images of Breast-Feeding Bourgeois Mothers3 The Strengthening of the Institution of Wet-Nursing4 Child-Care Manuals for Mothers5 The Feeding Bottle and the Medicalization of Breast-FeedingPart 2: Death and Substitute Mothers2 Breast-Feeding and Death1 The Dead Mother in Flood Scenes2 Death and Miraculous Salvation: The Dead Mother in Religious Art3 Natural Disasters, Wars, Plagues, and Famine: The Dead Mother in Secular Art4 From the Exotic to the Contemporary: Dying from Hunger in France3 Breast-Feeding as Benevolence: Representations of Charity1 “La Charité c’est moi!”: The Image of Charity from the French Revolution to the End of the Bourbon Restoration2 Between Secularization and Religiosity: The Image of Charity during the July Monarchy3 Charity as Obligation: The Image of Charity during the Second Republic4 Christianity and Social Justice: The Image of Charity during the Second Empire5 Christianity, Fertility and Nationalism: The Image of Charity During the Third Republic4 From Sanctity to Promiscuity: The Wet Nurse1 ‘La mère de lait et la mère de sang’: Wet-Nursing during the French Revolution2 The Wet Nurse as a Second Mother: Wet-Nursing in Nineteenth-Century France3 The Nourrice sur lieu and the Soldier: Sexuality and Low ClassPart 3: Maternal Breast-feeding5 Charity and Social Justice: Maternal Breast-Feeding among the Lower Classes1 Socialism and Christian Generosity: Destitute Beggars Breast-Feeding Outdoors2 Social Justice and Egalitarianism: Working-Class Mothers Breast-Feeding At Home6 Fertility, Nature, and Work in the Fields: Maternal Breast-Feeding among the Peasantry1 Serenity and Fertility: Peasants Breast-Feeding in the Fields2 The Shattered Dream3 Nostalgia and Pastorality7 A Woman’s Virtue: Portrayals of Breast-Feeding among the Bourgeoisie1 The Modern Madonna: Artists’ Spouses Breast-Feeding at Home2 Religiosity and Allegory: Bourgeois Mothers Breast-feeding in the Garden3 From the Personal to the Universal4 The Feeding Bottle: Visual Silencing versus Historical ProminenceAfterword1 Lactivism: Breast-Feeding as an Ideology2 Women and Breast-Feeding3 Breast-Feeding in Art and Culture TodayBibliographyIndex