Photographs by the author. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web project or cite it in a print one. Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Left: Whole panel. Right: Closer view of the young sleepers.
A tile panel showing an episode from the late sixteenth-century folktale "The Babes in the Wood," popular later as a pantomime. It is one in a series of such well-known tales in St Thomas's Hospital, London, designed by Margaret Thompson and William Rowe of Royal Doulton, and dating from the beginning of the twentieth century. They were intended to decorate the children's wards, but are now found in the south wing corridor linking the children's with the adult's wards. Judy Rollins feels that they mark the transition between them (125).
In a way, the panel seems unsuitable in such a setting, because, at least in its traditional form, the tale describes the abandoned children as dying. They are then covered with leaves by a robin (birds can be seen here, arriving on the pathetic scene). In pantomime versions, however, the children are apt to be rescued — a more appropriate ending for young patients.
Among other surviving tile panels at the hospital are two showing episodes from Puss in Boots.
Links to Related Material
Bibliography
Rollins, Judy. Purpose-Built Art in Hospitals. Bingley: Emerald Publishing, 2021.
Created 15 March 2023