Graduation Semester and Year
Summer 2025
Language
English
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in History
Department
History
First Advisor
Stephanie Cole
Second Advisor
David Baillargeon
Third Advisor
Kenyon Zimmer
Fourth Advisor
Amelia Rauser
Abstract
This dissertation offers a detailed examination of the depiction of female faces and breasts during the British long eighteenth century (1660-1815). I assess the ways in which men depicted women’s bodies, specifically their breasts and faces, in British art. This study addresses the changes in femininity, female sexuality, race, and class through the lens of eighteenth-century portraiture and satire. Portraiture, a genre examined early in this study, suggests that male artists wanted to link positive attributes regarding female facial aesthetics and female breasts onto their sitters. Satirical prints, which emerged mid-century, were considerably less likely to place their female subjects in an affirmative light though, and they had a larger impact. Thus while much of the rhetoric surrounding female beauty and breasts remained constant over the period examined here, by the mid eighteenth century, the popularity and economic accessibility of satirical prints allowed male artists to use the negative connotations regarding female beauty and breasts toward individual women to admonish them. Along with technological changes that shifted the force and content of some artistic depictions of women, the larger context of the nation—especially the expansion of the British Empire—had an impact on what would otherwise seem to be a consistent effort to write women’s subordinate position onto their bodies. As the empire emerged, racial ideas became an integral factor in shaping the discourse on gender and sexuality. Artists reflected those ideas in the images they produced.
Keywords
Eighteenth century, England, Breasts, Cosmetics, Beauty, Satire, Portraiture, Female
Disciplines
European History | History | History of Gender
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Umphenour, Ashley M. and Umphenour, Ashley M., "FEMALE VIRTUE IN THE MALE GAZE: REPRESENTATIONS OF FEMALE BREASTS AND FACES IN ENGLISH PORTRAITURE AND SATIRICAL PRINTS, 1660-1815" (2025). History Dissertations. 79.
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/history_dissertations/79