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

• Superior document: Brill's studies in intellectual history ; Volume 285
• Author: Gal Ventura
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden,, Boston: : Brill,, 2018.
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Series: Brill's Studies in Intellectual History v. 285.; Brill's studies in intellectual history. Brill's studies on art, art history, and intellectual history ; v. 29.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (503 pages).

In Maternal Breast-Feeding and Its Substitutes in Nineteenth-Century French Art , Gal Ventura investigates the ideological concepts behind the endorsement of maternal breast-feeding in modern Western society. Using diverse visual and textual sources and surveying hundreds of artworks produced from the time of the French Revolution to the beginning of the twentieth century, Ventura reveals the historical, political, religious, and economic factors that shaped the representations of breast-feeding and its substitutes in French art. She thus sheds light on the changing attitudes toward maternal breast-feeding in nineteenth-century France, which have had a considerable impact on the glorification of breast-feeding in the Western world to this very day.

Table of Contents

Front Matter -- Copyright page -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- List of Illustrations -- Mothers, Wet Nurses and Feeding Bottles -- The History of Breast-Feeding in France -- Death and Substitute Mothers -- Breast-Feeding and Death -- Breast-Feeding as Benevolence: Representations of Charity -- From Sanctity to Promiscuity: The Wet Nurse -- Maternal Breast-Feeding -- Charity and Social Justice: Maternal Breast-Feeding among the Lower Classes -- Fertility, Nature, and Work in the Fields: Maternal Breast-Feeding among the Peasantry -- A Woman’s Virtue: Portrayals of Breast-Feeding among the Bourgeoisie -- Afterword -- Back Matter -- Bibliography -- Index of Names.