Title

The Foster Sisters, by John Bostock, in the Manchester Exhibition, 1865. Creator: W Thomas.

Caption

The Foster Sisters, by John Bostock, in the Manchester Exhibition, 1865. Engraving of a painting. 'What a contrast there is between these two maidens, though of the same age, fostered by the same mother's care, nursed in the same bosom, and nourished at the same breast! The one is buxom and strong, her cheek rosy and round; the other is feeble and faint, her cheek wasted and wan, except where tinted with the unearthly hectic flush of consumption. The one is afflicted, stricken indeed unto death; the other has assumed the divine office of consoler, and reads from the Word of Life...Probably she is the daughter of the neighbouring squire; while the poor, afflicted girl may with equal likelihood be the child of the humble cottager - that squire's tenant...What...must be the emotion of the aged couple as they contemplate these foster-sisters and think of the fate that has selected, and will tear from them, their own darling - their own, their only daughter? What must be the anguish of her who has performed a mother's duty to both, and whose ever-watchful care is even now manifested by her seeking to adjust the pillow to support more comfortably that drooping head?' From "Illustrated London News", 1865.

Credit line

Photo12/Heritage Images/The Print Collector

Reference

HRM24A26_404

Model release

NA

Property release

NA

License type

Rights managed

Available size

51,0Mb (5,1Mb) / 16,0in x 12,4in / 4788 x 3722 (300dpi)

Keywords

animal building buildings female women woman people male interior man men health domestic house houses family home religious fruit arts painting bird birds religion art guy reading British color death dying cottage Christianity illness sister sisters Victorian century gallery Britain inside ill household newspapers disease press picture Bible consumption print sibling concept pictures exhibition weak B&W visitor sentimental birdcage engraved engraving art gallery family life Colour 19th century Indoors sentimentality black & white black and white B W white and black nineteenth century The Print Collector Illustrated London News maudlin TB tuberculosis ILN newspaper W Thomas Thomas W art centre John Bostock Bostock John 19th-century W. Thomas Thomas W.