Artist: Una Troubridge Media: Bronze Date & Location: c. 1915-1963 Image Source:Queer Britain
Significance to Queer Art History
This is a statue of Radclyffe Hall by her partner of twenty-nine years, Una Troubridge. They met in 1915 and lived together from 1916 until Hall’s death in 1943.
Radcylffe Hall is most well-known for having written A Well of Loneliness, which tells the life story of its protagonist, Stephen Gordon. It has become famous as a foundational lesbian novel and it also offers insight into histories of trans* masculinity and genderfluidity (as does Hall who was known as ‘John’ among friends).
A Well of Loneliness was banned for “obscenity” in 1928 and kept from being republished until 1949 (a ban protested by Virginia Woolf, herself an important figure in queer ‘hirstory’).
Una Troubridge was a sculptor alongside being an author and translator. She also had a daughter named Andrea from her marriage to her previous partner Ernest Troubridge.
Una herself was once the subject of a work of art by an iconic figure in lesbian art history. Romaine Brooks painted a portrait of Una in 1924.
Romaine Brooks, Una, Lady Troubridge, 1924, oil on canvas. Smithsonian American Art Museum.
When it came to Una sculpting her partner, she captured Radclyffe Hall standing tall with her arms crossed. Underneath she carved a variation on the poem Nevermore by Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been; I am also call’d No-more, Too-late, Farewell.
It is only very recently that this statue has been shown to the public. It was unveiled earlier this year at Queer Britain in London (UK) where it now stands proudly among the rest of their beautiful collection.
Artist: We’wha (it is likely We’wha’s signature on the handle) Media: Clay and pigment Date & Location: 1884, made on A:Shiwi (Zuni) territory in what is colonially known as ‘New Mexico.’ Currently at the Smithsonian in their Anthropology Department under Accession Number: 021664. Image Source:Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History, Anthropology Department, Accession Number: 021664
❤️Please note: I use both she/her and they/them pronouns since these seem to be the English pronouns most respectfully used to describe We’wha, but I want to acknowledge the failing of language here since these pronouns stem from colonial binaries.
❤️TW: Mentions of colonial violence and arrest
Significance to Queer Art History
This pitcher was most likely made by the A:Shiwi (Zuni) artist We’wha who was born in 1849. We’wha was lhamana. In A:Shiwi culture, lhamana is a term used by people assigned-male-at-birth who present themselves in feminine ways and train primarily (though not exclusively) in cultural roles associated with women. Lhamana figures from history are often reclaimed today using the contemporary term ‘two-spirit.’ For example, the contemporary two-spirit photographer Shawn Johnston commissioned and photographed a beaded medallion by fellow artist Donna Noah with an image of We’wha. I also include a photograph of We’wha below that looks like it may have been the inspiration for this medallion.
Beaded medallion of We’wha by Donna Noah. Photographed by Shawn Johnston. Image source: CBC News.
During their lifetime, We’wha worked across media and has been recognized for being extremely skilled at both weaving and pottery. The media in which she worked also reflected her lhamana identity since weaving was seen as a more masculine practice and pottery as a more feminine practice.
They also played a significant role as a promoter of A:Shiwi arts and defended their community against colonial violence. We’wah was one of the first A:Shiwi artists to sell her works to settler-consumers and during a 1886 trip to Washington, D.C she met with President Grover Cleveland. That being said, such recognition by the colonial government did not extend to protecting her or respecting A:Shiwi sovereignty. In 1877, We’wah and other lhamana were imprisoned when Christian missionaries came to A:Shiwi territory. We’wah was also arrested for defending the A:Shiwi governor in 1892 from a colonial soldier who was trying to arrest the governor.*
This colonial violence did not stop We’wha, though. As described by contemporary two-spirit journalist Samuel White Swan-Perkins, “after getting out of prison, We’wha walked 40 miles back to the reservation and returned to their former life: leading ceremonies, making pottery, weaving with the women and hunting with the men.”
*I take the term ‘governor’ from Will Roscoe’s work, but would be interested if anyone had further information about which term is most appropriate for an A:Shiwi leader.
Relevant Sources:
Hannah McElhinney. Rainbow History Class: Your Guide Through Queer and Trans History. Unceded lands of the Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation: Hardie Grant Books, 2023.
Will Roscoe. “Sexual and Gender Diversity in Native America and the Pacific Islands” in LGBTQ America: A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer History. Edited by Megan E. Springate. National Park Foundation, 2016. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/lgbtqheritage/upload/lgbtqtheme-nativeamerica.pdf.*
*I have not read this source in its entirety, but based on the section on We’wah I want to flag that some of the framing and language needs revising to avoid perpetuating colonial harms and binaries. I include it here as a place to start, though, as it does have lots to offer to those seeking to do further research.
An Actress at her Toilet or Miss Brazen just Breecht
Artist: John Collet Media: Paper and coloured inks (hand-coloured) Date & Location: London, 1779, currently at the British Museum (not on display) Image Source: Wiki Images (Creative Commons License)
Significance to Queer Art History
This print is part of the long hirstory of genderfluidity in performance. From Shakespearean plays at The Globe theatre to the stages of Tang Dynasty China and from eighteenth-century opera houses to contemporary clubs, the art of what we now call ‘drag’ has been thriving and entertaining through time and across geographies as a crucial part of the performing arts. In response to all of the recent anti-drag and transphobic legislation we are seeing as I write this entry (particularly in the United States), you can expect a lot more on this long(very long, very fabulous) hirstory in the coming months.
This particular print shows the actor Margaret Kennedy who performed at Covent Garden and Vauxhall Gardens in eighteenth-century London. Another print (below) from 1778 shows Kennedy in full, flamboyant costume as Captain Macheath in The Beggar’s Opera by John Gay.
John Bew, Portrait of the actress Margaret kennedy, in character in Gay’s ‘Beggar’s Opera’, 1778. Etching. British Museum, London.
In the role of Captain Macheath, Kennedy plays a ‘breeches part,’ which Beth Friedman-Romell describes as “an eighteenth-century stage staple.” Friedman-Romell explores how these (often satirical) roles could be a queer invitation for audiences who “willingly and pleasurably gave themselves over to the illusion.” She draws on a verse about another eighteenth-century actor who played ‘breeches parts,’ Peg Woffington, to show that this potential for queer desire was recognized at the time. That excellent Peg Who showed such a leg When lately she dressed in men’s clothes— A creature uncommon Who’s both man and woman And chief of the belles and the beaux!
The genderfluidity of these actors and their characters is itself a source of desire-sparking power. The caption under the 1778 etching of Kennedy even reads “how happy I could be with either” suggesting both audience desires and perhaps the desires of the actor whose embodiments spanned the spectrum of gender.
Ula Lukszo Klein recognizes the potential for both lesbian and trans* experiences in these performances. She writes that the “authors and audiences acknowledged and enjoyed the possibility of same-sex desires or transgender or gender-fluid embodiments” as she finds these roles to be sites of “heterosexual and homosexual desires, as well as transgender and nonbinary embodiments.”
These roles are also important to the legacy of drag since they—like contemporary drag—could challenge the expectations, desires, and biases of their audiences through playing with gendered performance. As described by Helen Brooks, actors like Kennedy and Woffington “drew attention to masculinity’s status as something achievable—displayed, worn, and ultimately performed through gesture, clothing, posture, and vocal presentation.” Even in the display of the legs of afab actors, these roles required a subversion of gendered constraints on the body.
Resource(s)*
*Disclaimer: Many of these sources use the term ‘cross-dressing’, but I would invite trans* interpretations as well as the use of the term ‘drag’ to bring these historical moments into contemporary queer discourse and to recognize through the terms we use the resonances that these hirstories have with contemporary queer communities ♡
Beth Friedman-Romell. “Breaking the Code: Toward a Reception Theory of Theatrical Cross-Dressing in Eighteenth-Century London.” Theatre journal (Washington, D.C.) 47, no. 4 (1995): 459–479.
Helen Brooks, Actresses, Gender, and the Eighteenth-Century Stage: Playing Women. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Hui-ling Chou. “Striking Their Own Poses: The History of Cross-Dressing on the Chinese Stage.” TDR : Drama review 41, no. 2 (1997): 130–152.
Lorna Koski. “Cross-Dressing With Shakespeare.” WWD, December 31, 2013, 10. Gale Academic OneFile (accessed March 7, 2023)
Ula Lukszo Klein. Sapphic Crossings: Cross-Dressing Women in Eighteenth-Century British Literature. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2021.
Artist: Unknown Media: Sandstone Date & Location: This sculpture was made between 900 and 1450 CE, but we do not know a precise date. You can currently find it at the British Museum Image Source: Image from the British Museum website
Significance to Queer Art History
This statue would have originally been part of a temple or shrine in ancient Mexico. It was made by the Huastec whose culture is thought to date back to the 10th C. BCE and continues today. Tlazolteotl was a Huastec goddess who was later adopted by the Aztecs (perhaps more accurately called Nahuas).
Tlazolteotl was especially associated with steam baths, midwives, childbirth, adulterers, and purification. This goddess was said to be able to both incite lust and purify people of their sexual excesses. Her significance to queer art history stems from her genderfluidity. She was often depicted as a woman warrior with both vulvic and phallic genitals. Contrary to the stigma surrounding intersex and trans* people today, for the Huastec this likely symbolized her supernatural powers.
Some also suggest she was the mother of the Maize God who was likewise famous for being able to move across genders.
Forms of queerness were celebrated (and continue to be celebrated) by many Indigenous cultures around the world prior to colonization, and contemporary homophobia and transphobia are just some of the ongoing harms of colonization. The suppression of queerness was often cited as one ‘reason’ for colonial violence. As noted in R.B Parkinson’s A Little Gay History, in 1519 “the invading Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes declared–very conveniently–that ‘they are all sodomites.’
In more recent queer art history, Tlazolteotl was also a figure frequently referenced by famously bisexual artist Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera.
Reference(s)
Comisarenco, Dina. “Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Tlazolteotl.” Woman’s art journal 17, no. 1 (1996): 14–21.
Parkinson, R.B. A Little Gay History: Desire and Diversity Across the World. London: The British Museum Press, 2013.
Artist: Unknown Media: Painted terracotta Date & Location: Around 500 BC, Italy Where can I find this item?: The British Museum Image Source: Photo by the author
(This object was included in the exhibition “Feminine Power: The Divine to the Demonic” at the British Museum, which ran May 19th to September 25th 2022)
♥Trigger warnings for mentions of sexual assault♥
Significance to Queer Art History
This relief sculpture shows the famed Medusa with her characteristic serpentine hair as well as a beard and tusks, which is not uncommon for images of her made in Ancient Greece. Gorgoneion is the term used to describe these ancient images of her severed, serpentine head. Since Medusa’s image was believed to possess protective powers these objects were thought to be imbued with apotropaic (or protective) qualities and this one was likely mounted on a roof to serve this purpose.
Terracotta antefix with the head of Medusa,
6th century B.C.
Currently on display at the The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 171.
In Greek mythology Medusa is one of the Gorgon sisters born to two sea gods, Keto and Phorkys, and is famously killed by Perseus who reflects her gaze in his shield. Upon her death, her children Pegasos and Chrysaor spring from her neck and her decapitated head retains its powerful deadly gaze. Roman mythology adds that her transformation from mortal human to lethal legend was her ‘punishment’ after she was raped by Poseidon in the temple of Athena.
She is often taken up as a feminist symbol. Her hybridity, transformation, and the queer mode through which she creates her children also have queer potential. These bearded early representation further take this legendary figure beyond binary bounds. Anne DeLong (2001) compares the snakes in Medusa’s hair to the bearded witches in Macbeth for their mutual refusal of hegemonic femininity, and these bearded Medusa-figures certainly strengthen the bond between these temporally dispersed figures who are linked in lore through their body hair. They all have a place in the ever-growing archive of defiant, dangerous, protective, and powerful queer bodies that can be found throughout hirstory.
Artist: Kent Monkman (b. 1965) Media: Acrylic paint on canvas Date & Location: 2019, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Significance to Queer Art History
Kent Monkman is a Cree artist who works across the media of painting, photography, performance, installation and film. He is known for his critical interventions into ‘canonical’ European and American art history that highlight colonial violence (both historical and ongoing), queer sexualities, and resilience. This painting, mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People): Resurgence of the People, shows a reinterpretation of Washington Crossing the Delaware from 1851 by Emanuel Leutze, which is also housed in the Met. Instead of George Washington, though, it is Miss Eagle Testickle at the helm.
Monkman often includes his gender-fluid, Two-Spirit persona Miss Chief Eagle Testickle in his work. In this painting we see them adorned with rainbow earrings, flowing sheer and glossy red fabric, and Lou Boutons.
“I created Miss Chief Eagle Testickle to offer an Indigenous perspective on the European settlers and to also present a very empowered point of view of Indigenous sexuality pre-contact. We had our own traditions of gender and sexuality that didn’t fit the male/female binary. Miss Chief is a legendary being, she comes from the stars.”
Kent Monkman
Miss Chief Eagle Testickle
Resource(s):
Dr. June Scudeler (Métis) who is assistant professor in Indigenous Studies at Simon Fraser University and Issaku Inami who is an MOA Volunteer, Associate Gallery Host, and queer activist discuss Monkman’s work in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCeWhcyfYxg.
Artist: Anne Seymour Damer Media: Bronze Date & Location: c. 1793 Image Source: National Portrait Gallery, London (Creative Commons License)
♥ This post was created by Professor Melissa Berry from the University of Victoria, Art History and Visual Studies Department, who volunteered to be a guest author for Queer Art History this month! ♥
Significance to Queer Art History
British-born Anne Seymour Damer (1748–1828) challenged the heteronormative narrative of the late 18thC in several ways, pushing the boundaries of the gendered expectations that befell women of aristocratic backgrounds. Her lack of conformity drew both positive and negative attention during her lifetime and now, with the gift of hindsight, we, too, must be careful about biases and assumptions with which we might approach her exceptional work.
Firstly, it is undeniably extraordinary that Damer focused on sculpture as her artistic medium. Not only did she pursue this almost exclusively male activity but she excelled at it. Between 1784 and 1818, she exhibited Neo-Classical artworks regularly at the Royal Academy, receiving high praise from the press as well as colleagues. Her fame was such that she received commissions for portrait busts from the likes of George III, Princess Caroline, and Lord Nelson. Of course, it must be noted that her aristocratic upbringing and the connections therein made much of this possible but that should not undermine her determination and skill in this unforgiving, physical medium.
As a sculptor, Damer drew attention because of her proficiency but also because of the lack of gender conformity that practicing sculpture entailed. This roused much commentary and speculation about her personal life in the press. Respected Academician Joseph Farrington noted Damer’s habits saying: ‘the singularities of Mrs Damer are remarkable — She wears a Mans Hat, and Shoes, — and a Jacket also like a mans — thus she walks about the fields with a hooking stick… .’
Some commentators took this othering of Damer further citing her as a Sapphist; the anonymous A Sapphick Epsitle was even dedicated to Damer in 1778. At the dawn of the 19thC, ‘Sapphist’ was frequently employed in descriptions of upper-class women suspected of engaging in romantic relationships with other women and was, therefore, an indicator of their depravity. That is to say, this term was laden with negative, classist connotations and not one with which women would be eager to identify.
As for Damer’s relationships with women, in spite of rumours, these are difficult to prove concretely, though some evidence points to their existence. Even before the death of her estranged husband, her demonstrative friendships were closely observed in the press. Letters between her and friends such as actress Elizabeth Farren and writer Mary Berry, as well as contemporaneous accounts by acquaintances, point to intense intimacy and devotion. Her portrait busts of these women evidence tenderness and deep consideration of her subject. In fact, Berry’s bust was the only portrait of a women that Damer executed in bronze, a difficult and expensive material.
So, from choice of artistic medium to choice of dress, Damer pushed against gender norms. As for her sexuality, yes, she was a part of circles of artistic and intellectual women and it is clear that some of these relationships were more intimate than others. Perhaps with Damer, and other artists like her, our energies would be better served not fixating on the categorization of her sexuality but instead seeking to situate her in an art history that embraces her tenacity and her desire to break free from her male-dominated experience. Damer is a wonderful case study for considering queerness as it was performed and experienced in a specific historical, social context.
Anne Seymour Damer, Self-Portrait, 1971, Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Marble. Image Source: Wiki Images
Artist: Unknown (From a late thirteenth-century copy of William of Waddington’s Manuel des pechiez/Manual of the Sins) Media: Manuscript Illumination (ink and pigment on parchment) Date & Location: c. 1280, England Where can I see this artwork?: Princeton Library, Special Collections, Taylor MS. 1, folio 44 recto (this whole manuscript has also been digitized for online viewing)
Significance to Queer Art History
Both men and women wrote passionately about their visionary experiences of Christ in the late medieval period. These accounts, and visualizations like this one in Taylor MS. 1, invite considerations about gay and lesbian relationships. What does it mean for a layman (non-clergy man) to fantasize an erotic embrace with Christ? Might we find pleasure in looking at this medieval image of two men embracing?
It also invites questions of gender fluidity. The union of a human soul with Christ was often allegorized as a bride-groom relationship. In cases of AMAB (assigned-male-at-birth) or masculine devotees, though, this results in a feminization. They become ‘the bride’ of Christ. Similarly, Christ’s body (and especially his wound) is often imbued with multiple genders. The wound might be also a vulva or a breast in the writings of the medieval mystic, and indeed is sometimes represented as giving birth to a personification of the Church.
Bibliotheque nationale de France, c. 1369
(searching for more detailed citation)
He [Christ] tenderly placed his right hand on her neck, and drew her towards the wound in his side. “Drink, daughter, from my side,” he said, “and by that draught your soul shall become enraptured with such delight that your very body, which for my sake you have denied, shall be inundated with its overflowing goodness.” Drawn close in this way to the outlet of the Fountain of Life, she fashioned her lips upon that sacred wound, and still more eagerly the mouth of her soul, and there she slaked her thirst.
vision of Catherine of Siena (1347–1380)
Resource(s)
Karma Lochrie. “Situating Female Same-Sex Love in the Middle Ages.” The Cambridge Companion to Lesbian Literature, Cambridge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 79-92.
Robert Mills. “Hanging with Christ.” Suspended Animation: Pain, Pleasure and Punishment in Medieval Culture. London: Reaktion Books, 2006. 177-199.
Artist: Mary Høeg Media: Photography Date & Location: c. 1895-1903, Horton, Norway Where can I see this artwork?: Preus Museum, Norway
Significance to Queer Art History
Mary Høeg was a Norwegian suffragette and photographer. This is a photograph (described to me as an early “selfie of sorts”) of her and her partner, Bolette Berg. It is part of a private collection of her photographs, which subvert cis-heteronormative expectations of portraiture, and which were labelled ‘private’ when they came to the Preus Museum. The photographs Høeg sold to the public were primarily landscapes, and they were sold at ‘Berg and Høeg photography studio’ in Horten, Norway.
Digitized reproductions of her private photos also beg questions of the ethics of reproducing and sharing art works not created for public display.
Would she have minded? Could she have imagined such wide-spread access? Does the importance of archiving queer art works justify their reproduction?
Marie Høeg (left) posing with an unknown person (right) in the studio. Photo: Berg & Høeg, c. 1895-1903. The Preus museum collection.
Artist: Unknown Author: Heldris de Cornuälle Date & Location: Early 13th Century, France Media: Pigment on vellum (calf skin)
Queen Eupheme (right) seducing Silence (left), WLC.LM.6, Roman de Silence, f. 209r. Used with permission from University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections.
Significance to Queer Art History
The French narrative Le Roman de Silence was written by Heldris de Cornuälle in the 13th century. This is the only known surviving copy, also from the early 13th century, which exists between the vellum folios 188r-223r of WLC/LM/6 at the University of Nottingham.
This narrative, including the eleven miniatures (images) containing narrative content, is based on another medieval text: De Planctu Naturae (The Complaint of Nature)by Alain de Lille (c.1128-1212). Alain de Lille focusses especially on “sodomy,” and so does Heldris de Cornuälle.
Sodomy, and characters representing sodomy, does not match with our modern cis-heteronomative presumptions. This means that the “sodomitical” characters represented in Romance de Silence don’t conform to these presumptions either.
There are three characters (Silence, Eupheme, and the Nun) who do not conform to their assigned gender roles, and one of these characters has been called by contemporary scholars a “lesbian” figure.
Silence standing nude before Kind Evan, WLC.LM.6, Roman de Silence, f. 222v. Used with permission from University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections.
Summary
Since these images are so connected to the story, here is a brief summary of these three “queer” characters and their role in the plot:
**Please note: Various gendered pronouns are used here to discuss the narrative, and I do not want to negate any trans/non-binary interpretations, which I think abound. Please interpret them in whichever ways resonate for you. Additionally, these characters face violent endings so, while this is a piece of the history of queer representation, this is a loving heads-up before you dive in.**
Silence
Silence is initially described as a woman, but raised as a man after the king decrees that daughters can no longer inherit.
Silence is revealed to be a woman by Merlin at the end of the narrative, and she is then married to the king.
Silence’s body had taken on physical masculine features before being revealed, though, which are described as being “refinished” by Nature (ll. 6457–6460).
It is also worth noting that Silence had desires to make the transition permanent. He sought out Merlin to that end, but was foiled by Eupheme (ll. 6457-6460).
He is also accused of liking “young men a lot” and being an “herite” (ll. 3945-3947).
“Heretic” came to be synonymous with “sodomite” in late medieval France.
Eupheme/Eufeme
Eufeme/Eupheme is sent to marry King Evan to stop a war. She arrives with her black hair on a boat which also carries black horses to be gifted to the king (ll. 231-233).
She falls ill upon arrival delaying the wedding, but it happens three days later.
She tries to seduce Silence, and is described as being “highly skilled in such matters” (l. 3713). She is also described as loving and feeling “anguished yearning…/for this young man who was a girl (ll. 3698-3704).
Another of Eupheme’s lovers is a nun who is revealed to be “a man” near the end.
This plot point has been referred to by other scholars as further suggesting her preferences for women.
The gendered hegemony is perpetuated at the end of the narrative when Eufeme is executed by equine quartering (l. 6656). This was a common sentence for sodomy.
Adjectives used for Eufeme include: “female satan/cis sathanas” and “lady harlot/la dame fole” (l. 6273).
The Nun
A nun is in Queen Eupheme’s entourage when they intercept Silence bringing Merlin to the king.
While dressed as a nun, she/her pronouns are used for this character: she said/fait ele (l. 6250).
The nun is then revealed by Merlin in his long, riddle-like speech to be “Eufeme’s lover/… deceiving [the king] in woman’s dress” (ll. 6531-6532).
The gendered hegemony is reinforced once again when the nun is made to strip before the king (ll.6570-6571), and then executed with Eufeme (ll. 6655).
Blackout Artist: Indira Allegra Date & Location: 2015, Digital Media: Digital Weaving Installation, Dimensions Variable
Significance to Queer Art History
In Indira Allegra’s online portfolio this work is described as:
… a large scale video text/ile installation studying the weave structure of police uniforms alongside statements made by families of those lost to police violence including: Aiyana Stanley-Jones (7), Tamir Rice (12), John Crawford III (22), Amadou Diallo (23), Tarika Wilson (26), Eric Garner (43), Yvette Smith (45), and Eleanor Bumpurs (66). In six black and white panels, these grief stricken texts scroll and scan endlessly, struggling to articulate themselves through the presence of serge twill – the fabric used to manufacture police uniforms across the nation.
Queer activism and art history cannot be anything but intersectional — if they are not intersectional, they will only serve to reinforce the fabric of systemic oppression and violence. Be queer, and be proud, and if you’re a white queer (as I am) be active about using your white privilege to dismantle the systems and cultural narratives that created it.
The realities of systemic racial violence demand both an immediate response, and deeper longterm changes. Racism needs to be dismantled by our performances, by our dinner conversations, by our curricula, by our websites, by our canvases.
To all of the BIPOC queer folx who visit this website, thank you for checking out this digital collection, and I would like to centre your voices here. If you have feedback and/or art work you would like to see featured please reach me at: queerarthistoryqah@gmail.com
Hear Indira Allegra discuss “Blackout” in her own words
It is my sincere pleasure to introduce you — my sparkly, queer, and quarantined friends — to my favourite medieval Catholic saint.
Date & Location: 1678, (currently) Städtisches Museum, Braunschweig, Germany
Artist: Unknown
Media: I believe it is pigments and ink on a wooden panel, but I will keep investigating! I wanted to get her name out to you all even while awaiting the reopening of libraries.
Significance to Queer Art History:
Saint Wilgefortis (or Saint Kümmernis) was martyred on a cross — the same martyrdom as Christ. According to her hagiography (the formal term for stories of Saint’s lives), she was being forced into marriage by her father, but wished to remain a virgin married only to God. She prayed to God to save her from her fate. He responded to her prayers by giving her masculine features, such as a beard, so that no one would want to marry her (perhaps the medieval version of finding freedom through the defiance of cis- het- standards)! Her father sentenced her to death for her disobedience and had her crucified.
Since she has a beard and died on a cross, images of the gender-bending Saint Wilgefortis are often easily mistaken for images of Christ. Some distinguishing features are: her missing shoe on the right foot, a fiddler, and sometimes a gown.
Saint Wilgefortis is a valuable component of the web of intersectional queer and feminist art “hirstories.” She is commonly seen as the Patron Saint of Abused Women, and she makes us question premodern/medieval constructions of gender and sexuality. Transformation between binary genders, as well as non-binary characters like Saint Wilgefortis herself, abound in the medieval imagination from biblical narratives to courtly romances.
The Vatican also removed her Feast Day from the Catholic calendar in 1969, and so her story continues in the discourse of trans- and homophobic exclusion, the resilience queer cultural memory, and contemporary art activism.
German image of St Wilgefortis. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.
Resources:
Friesen, Ilse E. The Female Crucifix: Images of St. Wilgefortis since the Middle Ages. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001.
