CORSETTED & COSSETTED: The French Bourgeois Woman & The Velvet Prison of the Boudoir with Sylvia Sagona

With marriage and motherhood her only options, the innocent bride’s tightly policed upbringing led to neuroses which the medical profession then used to prove that she was unfit for education and public life.

Her only confidants were her diary, piano and the pampered pets whose artificial lives mirrored her own.

This lecture will explore the meaning behind the seemingly idyllic images of the art of the Salon and Impressionist painters.

SYLVIA SAGONA is an internationally recognised specialist on 19th century French society. She retired from the French Department at the University of Melbourne to work on historical documentaries for French and Australian television and is currently researching a book on Parisian women in the 19th century.

https://www.mnbaq.org/en/exhibition/berthe-morisot-1256