http://en.posztukiwania.pl/wp-content/themes/special-theme
Navigation Menu
  • Blog
  • News
  • About me
  • Media
  • Lectures
Home » Blog » “Hidden Mothers” in the old photographs
Thu09

“Hidden Mothers” in the old photographs

Magdalena Łanuszka :: in Nov 9, 2017 :: in Blog :: 3 comments

Lately I had a pleasure to write a short text on “Victorian Post-Mortem Photography” (in Tygodnik Powszechny, in Polish), mainly focusing on confronting some popular (but erroneous) myths on this subject. No-one would really take a creepy picture of a corpse posed on a stand (those stands would not be able to hold the body straight anyway!) and paint the eye-pupils so the dead could look alive…! But today I do not want to write about “post-mortem myths”; instead I will focus on another, yet similarly fascinating subject.

All the lovers of the 19th- and early 20th-century photography are familiar with the concept of so called “hidden mothers”. Those are the photos of babies sitting on the lap of strangely covered women; the result is rather creepy, especially for a nowadays’ viewers. Why would anyone take such a photo?

 

The secret is in the issue of a long exposure time of the 19th century photography. To get a good and un-blurred picture the model had to stay still for at least several dozen seconds, and in earlier days even for several minutes. The easiest way to photograph an infant would be placing him or her in a chair, but in that case it would most likely be impossible to have him or her sit still. The woman holding a baby could provide him or her a necessary sense of comfort, calming the child and making him or her feel safe. As the photo may have been intended to be placed in an oval frame, after cropping the picture a woman hidden under a blanket would became a curtain-like background for the portrayed child.

But why did they cover “a mother” in the first place, instead of taking a photo of both mother and child? Most often it is assumed that the goal was to get a solo portrait of a baby. Would that be some kind of reference to the old aristocratic traditions of portraying each member of the family separately (so everyone knew one could afford so many expensive paintings)? Or perhaps it was a question of cutting down the costs; assuming that photographing more people was more expensive (e.g. due to the cost of retouching each face)? Well, I think that in the particular case of “hidden mothers” it was not about the money, but about a certain cultural issue, which is now not familiar for us anymore. Of course, in some cases one may indeed have covered the baby’s mother to get an unassisted baby’s portrait, but it makes no sense when it comes to group pictures, showing “hidden mother” among a few children. That case is a “family portrait” anyway, so why exclude a mother? Well, perhaps it was not a mother? Perhaps she did not belong to that family at all?

We do realise that a hidden woman holding a baby is most likely his or her closest person: she must have a deep relation with an infant so she could comfort him or her and make feel safe. We automatically assume that this has to be the baby’s mother, but most likely we are wrong! In the upper classes of the 19th and early 20th century biological mothers seldom took care of their children; they had nurses and nannies for that! As a result, for the well-born children back then (especially in their early infancy) a biological mother may have been almost a stranger. However, when the wealthy parents decided they wanted to have their children photographed, they obviously tried to avoid having a photo of a servant accompanying their kids. As a result I suspect that most of the “hidden mothers” are in fact only hired nannies or nurses.

The most surprising fact is that in some articles the “hidden mothers” are interpreted as related to the post-mortem photography: allegedly they would hold dead babies… That makes no sense at all, as most likely a dead baby would not need to be held to stay still! I think that this misinterpretation is based on our contemporary reception of the “hidden mothers” photos: they seem so creepy that we suspect they must have been related to the most terrifying kind of photography.

It seems that the myths which we now create around the 19th century photography are in fact the reflection of cultural changes that occurred within past 100 years. We look for sensation where there is none, for example we do not assume that the “hidden mother” may not be a mother at all. That is, by the way, very interesting: theoretically it is widely accepted today that women want to have professional careers, but on the other hand we expect them to take care of their babies themselves. Can you imagine a woman of today who would be brave enough to admit that she may have a baby, but she wants someone else to raise it, so she would not be forced to nurse the child, to get up in the middle of the night, to loose her good look and to give up her social life? Well, that was pretty common attitude for the upper classes of the 19th century. However, such a hired nurse may not have occurred in a photo with the child she took care of, no matter how close relation they had created in everyday life.



3 Visitor Comments

  1. Sherri says:
    October 6, 2018 at 2:08 am

    Fascinating! Are these photos in the public domain?

    Reply
    1. Magdalena Łanuszka says:
      October 6, 2018 at 9:38 am

      They are (at least according to Polish law), as their authors have been dead for more than 70 years.

      Reply
  2. Ellie Sager says:
    February 25, 2022 at 8:26 am

    Makes sense. It was common for children in upper class to be birthed by their mother and raised by a nanny.

    Case in point – Russian poet Pushkin.
    Raised by his nanny, was very attached to her and dedicated several poems to her. She had a great influence on his works. Not much is known about Pushkin’s relationship with his parents and certainly no poems were dedicated to them.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Pushkin#Early_life
    https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arina_Rodionowna_Jakowlewa#Miejsce_niani_w_tw%C3%B3rczo%C5%9Bci_Puszkina

    Reply

Post a Reply Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

  • Mysterious cult of a Saint Hound
  • Merry children’s games from past centuries
  • Articles published in a book “DETEFON, RADION, VIS. Opowieści muzealne o II Rzeczypospolitej”
  • Medieval female self-portraits
  • Virgin Mary beats the devil!

Recent Comments

  • Magdalena Łanuszka on Merry children’s games from past centuries
  • Alan Scarfe on Merry children’s games from past centuries
  • Alan Scarfe on Medieval female self-portraits
  • Magdalena Łanuszka on Molested Christ
  • Manolo on Molested Christ

Archives

  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014

Categories

  • Blog
  • Lectures
  • Media
  • News

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org

Tags

19th century 20th century animals Antiquity architecture art market Bible carnival Central Europe Christ customs death devil Early-modern fresco history Holy Spirit legend literature manuscripts Middle Ages mosaics Muse mythology Old Masters painting photography portrait prints relics Religious art Saints sculpture sex sexuality still life Virgin Mary wine

Designed by Fragrance Design © 2013 | Powered by WordPress

×

By using this website you allow us to place cookies on your computer for analytics.

However, if you would like to, you can change your cookie settings at any time.