TEEMING’, ‘breeding’, ‘bearing’, ‘big-bellied’, ‘great with child’, ‘in an interesting situation’, ‘rising of the apron’. These are only some of the historic descriptions for pregnant women. One might add ‘bun in the oven’, ‘up the duff’, and, a favorite of my friend with three children under six, ‘in the pudding club’.
A new exhibition at The Foundling Museum introduces us to 500 years of expectant mothers and their bumps. From the Angel Gabriel greeting Mary to Beyoncé announcing her imminent twins on Instagram (1.4 million ‘likes’ in half an hour), curator Karen Hearn has gathered portraits of pregnant women, some blooming, some glowing and some looking thoroughly fed up. The scheme first came to her almost 20 years ago, when, as curator of 16thand 17th-century British Art at Tate, she oversaw the acquisition of a 1620 portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts II of a lady in red laying a protective right hand over the top of her swelling skirts. There is something defiant in the posture and gaze of the unknown sitter. Indeed, she is very determinedly not sitting. Her left arm is draped over the back of a red velvet chair. She wears a feather topper, jet earrings, a constricting ruff, a corset, and a cape. She calls to mind the woman today who wears her stilettos until the very moment she enters the delivery ward.
この記事は Country Life UK の February 12, 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Country Life UK の February 12, 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Give it some stick
Galloping through the imagination, competitive hobby-horsing is a gymnastic sport on the rise in Britain, discovers Sybilla Hart
Paper escapes
Steven King selects his best travel books of 2024
For love, not money
This year may have marked the end of brag-art’, bought merely to show off one’s wealth. It’s time for a return to looking for connoisseurship, beauty and taste
Mary I: more bruised than bloody
Cast as a sanguinary tyrant, our first Queen Regnant may not deserve her brutal reputation, believes Geoffrey Munn
A love supreme
Art brought together 19th-century Norwich couple Joseph and Emily Stannard, who shared a passion for painting, but their destiny would be dramatically different
Private views
One of the best ways-often the only way-to visit the finest privately owned gardens in the country is by joining an exclusive tour. Non Morris does exactly that
Shhhhhh...
THERE is great delight to be had poring over the front pages of COUNTRY LIFE each week, dreaming of what life would be like in a Scottish castle (so reasonably priced, but do bear in mind the midges) or a townhouse in London’s Eaton Square (worth a king’s ransom, but, oh dear, the traffic) or perhaps that cottage in the Cotswolds (if you don’t mind standing next to Hollywood A-listers in the queue at Daylesford). The estate agent’s particulars will give you details of acreage, proximity to schools and railway stations, but never—no, never—an indication of noise levels.
Mission impossible
Rubble and ruin were all that remained of the early-19th-century Villa Frere and its gardens, planted by the English diplomat John Hookham Frere, until a group of dedicated volunteers came to its rescue. Josephine Tyndale-Biscoe tells the story
When a perfect storm hits
Weather, wars, elections and financial uncertainty all conspired against high-end house sales this year, but there were still some spectacular deals
Give the dog a bone
Man's best friend still needs to eat like its Lupus forebears, believes Jonathan Self, when it's not guarding food, greeting us or destroying our upholstery, of course
