Bawdy Bodies: Satires of Unruly Women

Visionaries and Outliers

Mary Toft (1701–1763) and Johanna Southcott (1750­-1814) were two of the most prominent self-proclaimed visionaries in the eighteenth century. In William Hogarth’s satire of Toft, he makes a mockery of the iconography related to the Christian Nativity. Toft, who claimed to give birth to rabbits, is surrounded by quack doctors from London and the shady characters who assisted her in the fraud. The female body is here exposed as the site of fraud and subjected to a medical inspection, which is shown to be so incompetent that the quack doctors are complicit in the deceit. Thomas Rowlandson’s ribald satire of Southcott similarly features the incompetence of doctors, whose voyeuristic probings of the grotesque female body are rendered for comic effect. Like Toft, Southcott claimed a miraculous pregnancy and was subjected to medical examination, here depicted with Southcott brazenly lifting her skirts and inviting the examination. Notably, both Toft and Southcott were from the country and both were members of the lower class; their notoriety demonstrates the cultural unease associated with religious enthusiasm and with the female body as a site of deceit.

Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827)
Medical Inspection, or Miracles Will Never Cease 
Etching with hand coloring
Published September 8, 1814 by Thos. Tegg
In Caricature Magazine, vol. 5 
The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Thomas Rowlandson’s ribald satire of Johanna Southcott similarly features the incompetence of doctors whose voyeuristic probings of the grotesque female body are rendered for comic effect. Rowlandson shows Southcott brazenly lifting her skirts and inviting the examination by a leering physician. In all, the image evokes the circus sideshow.

A self-professed prophet, Southcott acquired a group of followers who asserted her visionary status. In her mid-sixties, Southcott claimed a miraculous pregnancy and was subjected to medical examination. The examination failed to reveal either pregnancy or the illness that would kill Southcott only months later. Notably, both Southcott and Mary Toft were from the country and both were members of the lower class; their notoriety demonstrates the cultural unease surrounding religious enthusiasm and the female body as a site of deceit.

William Hogarth (1697–1764)
Cunicularii, or the Wise Men of Godliman in Consultation 
Etching 
Published December 1726 by William Hogarth
The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

In William Hogarth’s satire of Mary Toft, he makes a mockery of the iconography related to the Christian Nativity. In this case the central figure is Toft, who claimed to give birth to rabbits. She is surrounded by quack doctors from London and by the shady characters (her husband and sister-in-law) who assisted her in the fraud. While the mysteries of the female reproductive system are the focus of the fraud, Hogarth also critiques the incompetence of the doctors, making them complicit in the deceit.