Stumbling across this picture on twitter sent me off hunting for some background details, which led me to this British Museum page. The curator’s lengthy comment on it (click to ‘More’ to expand) are fascinating and also very British. The caption reads….
What Drudgery’s here, what Bridewell-like Correction!
To bring an Old Man, to an Insurrection.
Firk on Fair Lady, Flaug the Fumblers Thighs,
Without such Conjuring th’ Devil will not rise
I think the description of a man having difficulty getting it up as a ‘fumbler’ is a poetic but cutting one. I’m also going to be temped to describe my future erections as the ‘Devil Rising’.
According to the curator, the setting indicates a brothel or ‘flogging school’ and the coins behind indicate a service being paid for. Which I think means that this image, created sometime between 1674 and 1702, is one of the earliest of a pro-domme at work in her playspace. I guess we can be grateful that the fashion for portraying the domme as haughtily staring down at the viewer hadn’t yet caught on in 17th century femdom porn.
I like the way she has her skirts tied back. I know she’s exposing various bits, but there’s a definite sense that she’s also done it for more freedom of movement.
Yes. She looks like someone really putting some effort into it and getting a good swing going.
-paltego
Okay, I have more questions. For one, for whom were these prints intended? Like, general public, or special, private interested parties?
And for another, why isn’t she dressed in leather boots, latex body suit, and a neck belt, like everybody knows a real domme would be wearing?
It’s not really clear from the curator comments, exactly who commissioned or purchased them. I’d guess it was ‘anonymous’ prints for private wealthy collectors rather than the general public. But I’ve not a lot to base that on.
As for latex, that wasn’t invented until the 1920’s, so she didn’t have the option there. Given she’s not wearing leather, I guess that must have also come later. Presumably cows were an 18th or 19th century invention? There isn’t really isn’t any other logical explanation.
-paltego
The picture is probably popularized since it’s Figure 19 in ‘The History and Arts of the Dominatrix’, Anne O Nomis.
Interesting. I don’t have a copy of that book. I shall have to try and track one down. According to the British Museum page, they purchased this piece in 1881, so even in the straitlaced Victorian era, the museum was on the look out for unusual erotic material!
-paltego