The art of pregnancy

In 1622, Elizabeth Joscelin wrote a letter to her unborn child. This was fairly common practice in Elizabethan England; pregnant women were encouraged to write ‘mother’s legacy’ texts in case they did not survive the birth. ‘It may… appear strange to thee to receyue theas lines from a mother that dyed when thou weart born,’ she wrote. Her daughter Theodora was born on 12 October 1622, and following a violent fever Elizabeth died nine days later.

Her letter — which urged her child to pray, avoid temptation and be charitable — was discovered posthumously in her writing desk and published in 1624 by an Anglican clergyman called Thomas Goad. The Mothers Legacie, To her Vnborne Childe became a hugely popular book. It was reprinted seven times in the decade following its publication, with the final edition appearing in 1894.

The original manuscript is included in the Foundling Museum’s new exhibition Portraying Pregnancy: From Holbein to Social Media which brings together a modest but intriguing selection of portraits, texts and items of clothing in order to examine how women — the show looks predominantly at British women — have chosen to be depicted during pregnancy over the past 500 years. It is a sweet show in many ways, although it is sobering to realise that for most of history, women were expected to prepare for death as part of their preparations for birth.

But pregnancy was also considered an everyday part of life. Until the late 19th century, a woman could expect to bear between six to eight children, if all went well. Pregnancy was seen as a transient phase and most artists just sketched around the issue. In 1772, Theresa Robinson sat for Joshua Reynolds while expecting. ‘You may think her situation may make this an improper time to have her sit, but I assure you she never looked better nor half so fat in the face,’ wrote her sister Anne.