Museum of Femininity

Part 2 of our Pre Raphaelite Sister episode looking into the life of artists model Annie Miller, who grew up poverty stricken only to be plucked from obscurity and groomed into a lady befitting marriage by the morally upright William Holman Hunt. Their relationship was stormy to say the least, and poor Annie was held back from independence by the controlling Hunt as well as the barriers of her gender in the Victorian era. 
However her story does have a happy ending!

Sources
The Pre Raphaelite Sisterhood by Jan Marsh
preraphaelitesisters.com 

Instagram @themuseumoffemininity

Part 1 in our Pre Raphaelite Sisters series where we delve into the lives of the muses, lovers, wives and artists who navigated this male dominated artistic movement which was ruled by romantic chivalry. These women were often object of beauty fulfilling a certain male fantasy, but who were they really?
In this episode I look into the life of Lizzie Siddal, whose history is dominated by mythic stories, in the hope of revealing who she really was as a passionate artist, wife of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and a woman of her time. 

Sources

Pre Raphaelite Sisterhood by Jan Marsh
lizziesiddal.com
Tate Britain 
Pre Raphaelite Sister exhibition, National Portrait Gallery London 

Welcome back to the Museum of Femininity! In this mini episode Charlotte Appleyard will be giving you a brief taste of deadly makeup trends with a particular emphasis on the beauty habits of 18th Century English aristocracy and the tragic death of Maria Gunning the Countess of Coventry who died at just 27 of an illness which was partly thought to be caused by her addiction to the lead based makeup Venetian Ceruse. 

We hope you enjoy the episode, please find visual resources on our social media handles
Instagram @themuseumoffemininity
Twitter Museum_of_Fem

Episode resources

Arsenic Pills and Lead Foundation: The History of Toxic Makeup by Becky Little

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/09/ingredients-lipstick-makeup-cosmetics-science-history/
https://strangeremains.com/2017/01/31/beauty-to-die-for-how-vanity-killed-an-18th-century-celebutante/

Makeup and Lead Poisoning in the 18th century
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/objectretrieval/node/111

In Episode 9 of the Museum of Femininity, Charlotte Appleyard discusses Yurei, Japanese spirits, which existed in folklore and took on many different forms depending on the way the individual died or their social status in life. What most have in common however is a violent demise, and a drive to complete business which was left unfinished. 
In this episode we look into the female Yurei's in particular the tragic Ubume, who often died in childbirth, and the tale of Oiwa a wronged woman who went from submissive victim to vengeful spirit. 

All images referred will be on out social media platforms

Instagram @themuseumoffemininity 
Twitter @Museum_of_Fem 

Sources
Yokai.com
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-vengeful-female-ghosts-japanese-ukiyo-e-prints-will-haunt
Wikipedia 

Episode 8 Ghost Stories Part 1

The Life & Afterlife of Anne Boleyn
In this Halloween inspired mini episode Charlotte Appleyard tells the story of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII; her rise, fall, execution and the many ghostly sightings of her since that fateful day in 1536.

Follow us on Social media!

Instagram @themuseumoffemininity
Twitter @Museum_Of_Fem 

Sources
Historic Royal Palaces website
hauntedrooms.co.uk

Episode 7 of the Museum of Femininity explores the subject of the Femme Fatale; dark, mysterious, sexually alluring and dangerously manipulative. We examine the proto femme fatale seen in Greek Mythology and Biblical text from Medusa to Salome, delve into evolving artistic interpretations and the male gaze fuelled social construct of this feminine archetype and ponder on the role of women in 1930's and 40's Film Noir. As well as this we look at the inspiration behind many fictional Femme Fatale's by telling the story of Ruth Snyder who murdered her husband in 1928 and was one of the first women to be executed in the electric chair. 
We hope you enjoy our conversation! All reference material and images can be found on our social media accounts
Twitter @Museum_of_Fem
Instagram @themuseumoffemininity 

Episode Six of The Museum of Femininity kick starts a new regular series, investigating the lives of female artists who started their careers as artists models or were predominantly remembered for their relationships with famous male artists.
For the first episode in this series Charlotte Appleyard will delve into the life of Suzanne Valadon, a self taught artist who painted a variety of subjects and is one of the first female artists to joyously depict the male form from a female perspective. Before her successes as a painter she gained access to this male dominated environment through her work as an artists model for famous painters like Renoir and Toulouse Lautrec.

For references to artwork please check out the Museum of Femininity social media accounts

Twitter @Museum_of_Fem 

Instagram @themuseumoffemininity

Join Charlotte Appleyard for a solo mini episode exploring the Chinese custom of foot binding. A physically painful but culturally significant custom which spanned from the Song Dynasty to the 1940s.

Follow us on our social media for photographic references

https://twitter.com/museum_of_fem
https://www.instagram.com/themuseumoffemininity/ 

Episode 2: Part 1.
In our two part series about the Greco-Roman goddess of sex and love, we explore how the image of Venus, the icon of female beauty has been interpreted, lusted after and hijacked by different eras in history. In Part 2, we focus on the Diego Velázquez’s The Rokeby Venus and Pablo Picasso's Lithograph Venus and Cupid, after Cranach (Vénus et l'amour d'après Cranach).