Women and visual culture in nineteenth-century France, 1800-1852

Examining the relationship of class, gender and race to visual culture in 19th-century France, this book uses contemporary sources to consider the work of women artists, critics and writers.

It seeks to challenge many assumptions about female invisibility and objectification in bourgeois culture.In the first half of the 19th century, women, although at a serious disadvantage, became visible as artists, critics and patrons, and were not all invisible, domesticated or construed by forces outside their control.

Artists such as Angelique Mongez painted heroic neo-classical nudes, while many named - and anonymous - women wrote art criticism, articulating their views as female spectators.The book examines notions of "appropriate" work for women in relation to landscape, genre, sculpture and the emergence of Realism.

It also discusses the role of black women during this period, when French photographers visited Algeria, Egypt and the Sudan.

The book illustrates many long-forgotten works and discusses texts which seek to throw a new light on this period in the production of visual bourgeois culture.