Pregnancy in art

Historically, married women were at some stage of pregnancy for much of their life until menopause, but the depiction of this in art is relatively uncommon,[1] and generally restricted to some specific contexts.

[2] A research study conducted by Pierre Bourdieu in 1963 found that the great majority of 693 French subjects thought that a photo of a pregnant woman could not, by definition, be beautiful.

It is clear that the main attraction of the subject was the opportunity to depict a group of female nudes,[9] though it could be claimed that it illustrated the serious consequences of an unwanted pregnancy.

Depictions of Mary were by far the most frequent images featuring a pregnant woman in post-classical Western art, and probably remain so to the modern day.

In German images they are naked (though usually with halos) and John the Baptist bows or kneels to Jesus, who raises a hand in blessing.

[17] The rare subject of the Doubting of Joseph also needed to establish Mary's pregnancy, and some versions indicated this by unlaced openings in her dress or a "cutaway" unborn Jesus.

Penny Howell Jolly has proposed that this motif represents her "spiritual pregnancy", although in his account of the most famous example, The Descent from the Cross by van der Weyden (c. 1435, now Prado) Lorne Campbell notes the unlacing, but attributes it merely to Mary Magdalene's distressed condition.

These are not very common; the best known is the fresco by Piero della Francesca, where a heavily pregnant Mary has a prominent unlaced opening at the front of her dress, and another at the side.

[23] In Eastern Orthodox icons, the in utero Jesus, which is normally fully clothed, remains part of the tradition for certain representations to the present day.

In the Late Medieval Period, portraits of pregnant-looking women began to be painted, though the fashion for dresses gathered at the front makes these difficult to interpret or identify with confidence.

[26] The Arnolfini portrait by Jan van Eyck of 1434 might be an example of pregnancy, but the current views of art historians are mostly against this, as virgin saints were often shown in much the same way.

Some Italian Renaissance portraits thought to be of pregnant women show them wearing a gauzy underdress called a guarnello, often associated with pregnancy or the period after childbirth.

This is a feature seen in many images such as Visitation scenes where pregnancy is certain, and that probably indicates it in cases where it is much less clear, including some portraits by Anthony van Dyck.

[30] An exception to this is the "pregnancy portrait" (a term first used by Karen Hearn, a Tate Britain curator) of a woman shown as heavily pregnant, usually standing.

[31] There are some earlier examples from court portraiture on the Continent,[32] and in England,[33] but the main group of English portraits dates from roughly the late 1580s to about 1630.

[35] The example illustrated below by her court painter Bartolomé González y Serrano, which was sent back home to the Austrian Habsburgs, only varies her standard official portrait by exchanging her daughter for the usual dog or chair at the left, and bringing out her dress at the front.

There are a number of narrative scenes which show unwanted pregnancies essentially from the father's point of view, including some where the woman has brought the matter before local magistrates to award financial support, as unmarried women were able to do in England (uniquely, according to Bernard Picart, who poured scorn on the law).

[41] The English artist William Hogarth included many pregnant women in his works, usually with a satirical or comic intention, and generally more often giving a negative implication than a positive one.

The verses on the print version summarize the situation:[43]Here pregnant Madam screens the real Sire,/And falsly swears her Bastard Child for Hire/Upon a Rich old Letcher, who denies/The Fact, and vows the naughty Hussif lies;/His Wife enrag'd, exclaims against her Spouse,/And swears she'l be reveng'd upon his Brows;/The Jade, the Justice and Church Ward'ns agree,/And force him to provide Security.In particular Hogarth depicted a number of pregnant ballad-sellers, and ones with young children.

The Pregnant Woman by Pablo Picasso was a sculpture dedicated to his then partner Francoise Gilot and was made out of plaster, metal armature, wood, ceramic vessels and jars.

[52] In contrast to the general rarity of artistic depictions of pregnancy, in the field of medical illustration it has been one of the earliest and commonest subjects, with the same "cutaway drawing" approach found in some medieval religious works typically used.

The Scottish anatomist William Hunter, doctor to Queen Charlotte, was an admirer of Leonardo's drawings in the Royal Collection and learnt from their clear depictions.

His own work, The Anatomy of the Gravid Uterus Exhibited in Figures, was published in 1774 and based on extensive study of late pregnant corpses;[54] how he obtained so many was the subject of suspicion at the time and subsequently.

In 1954 the mayor of Monterchi, home of the Piero della Francesca Madonna, refused to lend it to an exhibition in Florence so as not to deprive the population of its benefits.

[57] The underside or verso generally has a simpler and often less elevated subject, with fewer, larger figures, and usually includes heraldry, with the arms of both parents shown.

Manuals advised keeping images with a positive impact in the sight of pregnant women, and it is in this context that the recurrent naked boys, and the scenes showing the end of a successful childbirth, should be seen.