The Curate Cross-Examined

Mary Ellen Edwards

1872

Wood engraving by Joseph Swain

6¼ x 4 inches

Illustration for Charles Lever’sThe Bramleighs of Bishop’s Folly, frontispiece.

An ensemble piece in which the artist focuses on small nuances of behaviour, notably gestures and varieties of gaze. As in the work of most of the principal artists of the sixties, Edwards provide a vivid record of the dynamics of class, manners, and polite behaviour, as well as representing the dress and décor of the period. Her emphasis on women and female etiquette is typical of her art as a whole, here positioning the viewer so that we see the men in the background and the women as a compact and detailed group in the foreground.

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Scanned image and text by Simon Cooke

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