Maternal Breast-Feeding and Its Substitutes in Nineteenth-Century French Art

Mothers, milk and mourning: The meanings of breast milk after loss of an infant

“…While the first topic has attracted a vast literature, the second is far less considered from a social perspective and rarely are the three kinds of donation considered together. What can milk donation tell us about the nature of the gift relation, and what kind of tissue economy (Waldby & Mitchell, 2006) does it constitute? A second question pertains to the ways in which hospital organisation and disciplinary divisions can perpetuate a mind-body split in clinical thinking, with multiple consequences for patients whose experience cannot be neatly compartmentalised in this way.…”

“…In this sense, the emotional and moral logic of milk donation is almost identical to that of posthumous organ donation-the family of the lost loved one decides to redeem this lost life by giving prolonged life to others (Healy, 2006;Waldby & Mitchell, 2006). One mother gave a particularly interesting interpretation of this logic when speaking of her desire to donate.…”

“…It is the optimal nourishment for premature infants whose immature digestive tracts are prone to necrotising enterocolitis if fed non‐human milk (Bellodas Sanchez & Kadrofske, 2019). As a means of maternal care for the infant, it carries an incalculable affective charge: it readily stands for all forms of maternal love, nurture, self‐sacrifice and domestic safety, a significance with a long historical genealogy in art and literature as well as in everyday life (Ventura, 2018). Breastfeeding is a synecdoche for good motherhood and women readily adopt a version of this significance when trying to understand their own experience of infant care (Johnson et al., 2009).…”

Cutting Edges: Professional Hierarchy vs. Creative Identity in Nicolas de Launay’s Fine Art Prints

“…This alteration evokes the notion of breastfeeding and the idea of nurturing land, glorified in the eighteenth century by philosophers, moralists, and physicians alike, 17 that was part of a rich world of imagery related to perfecting the changes in the family institution, as Carol Duncan and Ewa Lajer-Burcharth have shown. 18 Images of a mother breastfeeding or with exposed breasts mirrored not only medical or moral attitudes toward motherhood, marriage and child rearing, but served the ideas promoted by the government (Bellhouse 1991;Ventura 2018). The entry "Woman" in Diderot and D'Alembert's Encyclopédie from 1756 reveals the political-economic context that may have underpinned the image of the mother: "occupied with the governing of her family, she rules over her husband through kindness, over her children through sweetness [ .…”