The Governess: A Portrait of Middle-Class Employment

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The Governess: A Portrait of Middle-Class Employment is a Victorian-era painting by Rebecca Solomon that highlights the social isolation and precarious status of a middle-class governess within a bourgeois household.

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Statements (47)

Predicate Object
instanceOf Victorian-era artwork
painting
artHistoricalContext Victorian social realism
artisticIntention critique of social inequality
sympathetic representation of governesses
associatedWith Rebecca Solomon’s interest in women’s social conditions
countryOfOrigin United Kingdom
creator Rebecca Solomon NERFINISHED
creatorGender female artist
depictionType figurative painting
depicts bourgeois household
governess
middle-class employment
precarious social status
social isolation
focusesOn conditions of middle-class women who had to work
female professional employment in the 19th century
genre genre painting
historicalContext Victorian middle-class domestic ideology
rise of paid female domestic educators
interpretedAs exploration of liminal class identity
feminist-leaning social critique
mainSubject middle-class governess
medium oil painting
movement Victorian art
narrativeType domestic narrative scene
portrays ambiguous social position of governesses
emotional distance between governess and employing family
tension between respectability and dependence
relatedOccupationDepicted governess as live-in employee GENERATED
setInEnvironment middle-class domestic interior
setInPeriod 19th-century Britain
socialCommentaryOn dependence of unmarried middle-class women
employment options for educated women
power imbalance between employers and governesses
subjectMatterCategory domestic service and education
women in the workplace
theme class distinctions
domestic labor
gender roles
marginalization within the middle class
social hierarchy
women’s work
visualContrastBetween governess and bourgeois family members
visualMotif differences in dress indicating status
separation within the same room
workTitleLanguage English

Referenced by (1)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Rebecca Solomon notableWork The Governess: A Portrait of Middle-Class Employment