Dress and drapery: female self-fashioning in muslin, 1780-1850

This chapter examines how the new figure of the female periodical illustrator intersected with mid-century debates over the lack of employment for middle-class women, the nature of the female artist and the hierarchies of an industrialising image trade. It presents how the illustrator's cultural status in relation to the other practitioners was frequently articulated in reference to sexual politics in ways that both opposed and enabled the idea of women drawing on wood. The chapter reveals Florence and Adelaide Claxton as a case study, looking at the significance of graphic illustration in their careers and the niche they established within the periodical press for humorous social scenes. The tendency for art historians to concentrate on 'sixties school' illustration has eclipsed the contemporary popularity and currency of Florence and Adelaide Claxton's work. Florence and Adelaide Claxton's profiles as popular illustrators of social subjects in the 1860s positioned them on the ephemeral margins of the fine art establishment.