Rare. There is an example of this print in the British Museum and in the Yale Centre for British Art.
A remarkably early image of an upperclass English woman breastfeeding.
This mezzotint shows a three-quarter length portrait of a well-dressed, seated woman. She wears a muslin cap on her head, a low-cut gown and a shawl. Her head is in profile to the right as she looks down at the child in her arms. She breastfeeds the curly-haired infant who pulls at the top of her dress. Another child stands beside the woman on the left, counting the infant’s toes.
The culture of modesty in the eighteenth century makes this image unusual, as does the fact that it was the prevailing norm among the upper classes for children to by fed by wet nurses. However, the customs surrounding motherhood and specifically breastfeeding began to evolve after Rousseau’s publication of Emile, or on Education in 1762. In this treatise Rousseau argued against the custom of swaddling babies and advocated that breast feeding could strengthen the bond between mother and child. According to Rousseau:
“When mothers deign to nurse their own children, then will be a reform in morals; natural feeling will revive in every heart; there will be no lack of citizens for the state; this first step by itself will restore mutual affection. The charms of home are the best antidote to vice.”
In England, William Buchan’s widely popular book, Domestic Medicine, published in 1769, similarly encouraged women to breastfeed their own children.
There is some uncertainty surrounding who the sitter is. The copy in the Yale Centre for British Art is inscribed “Mrs Fayne” while Chaloner Smith suggests that she is Anne Pine, wife of the artist Robert Edge Pine (1730-1788). According to the ODNB Pine’s wife was called Mary and all of Pine’s children were born considerably earlier than this print so it is perhaps unlikely that his wife is the subject. It is perhaps natural though to assume this might be the case as there is a great intimacy in the image.
