Table Of ContentBEYOND THE FRAME
'Deborah Cherry is one of the foremost feminist analysts of historical visual
culture. She has researched and produced a lively, readable and timely study
which relocates the feminist impulse as a critical and central thematic of
nineteenth-century British middle-class culture. She carries her considerable
erudition and theoretical fluency with intellectual grace, producing a vitally
important historical reconfiguration of gender, class and race as contradictory
and troubling forces. This book will become a benchmark of feminist
scholarship. '
Griselda Pollock, Professor of Social and Critical Histories ofA rt, University of Leeds
'Deborah Cherry provides an eloquent history of the crucial connections
between Victorian women artists, the new visual culture and nineteenth
century social struggles over women's rights. New readings of gender and urban
space, the public reception of Harriet Hosmer's Zenobia, and the cultural work
of British women in Algeria make this an important contribution not merely to
art history, but to cultural history generally.'
Whitney Chadwick, Professor ofA rt, San Francisco State University
Beyond the Frame rewrites the history of Victorian art to explore the relation
ships between feminism and visual culture in a period of heady excitement
and political struggle. Artists were caught up in campaigns for women's
enfranchisement, education and paid work, and many were drawn into contro
versies about sexuality. This richly documented and compelling study considers
painting, sculpture, prints, photography, embroidery and comic drawings as well
as major styles such as Pre-Raphaelitism, Neo-Classicism and Orientalism.
Drawing on critical theory and post-colonial studies to analyse the links
between visual media, modernity and imperialism, Deborah Cherry argues
that visual culture and feminism were intimately connected to the relations
of p ower.
DeborahC herryi s Professor of the History of Art at the University of Sussex.
Her previous publications include Painting l%men: Victorian l%men Artists
(Routledge, 1993).
BEYOND THE FRAME
Feminism and visual culture,
Britain 1850-1900
Deborah Cherry
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London and New York
First published 2000
by Roudedge
2 Park Square, Milton Park,Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Roudedge
270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint if the Taylor & Francis Group
Transferred to Digital Printing 2006
© 2000 Deborah Cherry
Typeset in Bembo by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
Deborah Cherry asserts the moral right to be identified
as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-415-10726-1 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-10727-X (Pbk)
Publisher's Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the
quality of this reprint but points out that some
imperfections in the original may be apparent
For Joan Dorothy
CONTENTS
List off igures ix
Acknowledgements xiv
Abbreviations xvi
Introduction 1
1 Artists and militants,1 850-66 9
Artists and militants 9
Geographies of art andfeminism 20
Modern women, modern life 33
Writing women, art andfeminism 47
2 In/betweenth e colonialt heatre: visuality,v isibilitya nd
modernity 59
Shuttling, 'soul making' and the art of travel 59
Modernity, visuality and visibility 70
3 The 'worlding' ofA lgeria: feminism,i mperialisma nd
visualc ulture 75
Worlding 75
'a texting, textualising' :feminist subjects in the landscape 80
'a making into art, a making into an object to be understood' 87
4 HarrietH osmer'sZ enobia: a questiono fa uthority 101
Authorship and authority 101
The making of a name and a statue 105
J¥tzrrior queen, savant and woman of colour 119
Vll
CONTENTS
5 Tacticsa nd allegories,1 866-1900 142
Feminist politics and prifessional strategies 142
UiJmen,power, knowledge: the image ift he learned woman in the
1860s 159
Feminism and the tactics ifr epresentation 177
Towards an allegorical reading 198
Appendix: selected publications on Algeria, 1857-68 219
Notes 220
Su~estions for further reading 253
Index 255
Vlll
FIGURES
1.1 Unsigned drawing, 'The door to success is always labelled
PUSH', International Art Notes,June 1900. By permission of
The British Library, London, PP 1907 cb 18
1.2 The west end of London in the 1850s-60s 22-3
1.3 William Maw Egley, Omnibus Life in London, 1859, oil on
canvas, 448 X 419 mm, Tate Gallery, London 2000 26
1.4 John Leech, 'A little farce at a railway-station', Punch, 16 July
1859 27
1.5 Emily Mary Osborn, Nameless and Friendless, Royal Academy,
1857, oil on canvas, 825 X 1042 mm, private collection.
Photograph: Photographic Survey, Courtauld Institute of Art 29
1.6 Emily Mary Osborn, Home Thoughts, Royal Academy, 1856,
oil on canvas, 705 X 902 mm, private collection. Photograph:
Photographic Survey, Courtauld Institute of Art 34
1.7 Emily Mary Osborn, Going Home, study for Home Thoughts,
1856, oil on board, 914 X 1270 mm, The FORBES Magazine
Collection, New York © All rights reserved 36
1.8 Florence Claxton, ~men's ~rk: A Medley, Portland Gallery,
London, 1861, oil on canvas, 510 X 610 mm. Photograph:
Sotheby's Picture Library London 38
1.9 John Leech, 'The Parliamentary Female', Punch Almanack,
1853 44
1.10 [Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon], 'Ye newe generation', c. 1854,
ink on paper, 112 X 173 mm. The Mistress and Fellows,
Girton College Cambridge 46
2.1 Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon and Hamet in the courtyard
of the Campagne du Pavilion, Algiers, c. 1865-70,
photographs, 104 X 65 mm. The Mistress and Fellows, Girton
College Cambridge 64
2.2 Annie Leigh Smith, 'BRP at the Campagne du Pavillon'
[1857-61], ink on paper, c. 178 X 113 mm, The George Eliot
and George Henry Lewes Collection, the Beinecke Rare
IX
