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Social History of Medicine 2001 14(3):389-415; doi:10.1093/shm/14.3.389
© 2001 by Society for the Social History of Medicine
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On Display: Portraits of Seventeenth-century French Men-midwives

LIANNE MCTAVISH*

* Associate Professor of Art History, Department of History, University of New Brunswick P.O. Box 4400, Fredericton, NB, Canada E3B 5A3 E-mail: lmctavis{at}unb.ca

SUMMARY This article examines the portraits of seventeenth-century French accoucheurs (men-midwives) that regularly appeared as the first plate in their obstetrical treatises, representing the body from which the text had issued. It argues that these visual documents were forms of strategic display in keeping with the wider goals of the treatises—to present their authors as cultivated, skilled, and vastly experienced experts in childbirth. At a time when the visual evaluation of character was commonplace within medical and other contexts, author portraits presented the public image of accoucheurs. Before analysing the idealized images of men-midwives, however, the article explores the author portrait of Louise Bourgeois, royal midwife to Queen Marie de Médicis from 1601–9, and the first French woman to write obstetrica treatises. Bourgeois is portrayed not only as an exceptional practitioner granted royal favour, but also as a hybrid figure whose identity fluctuated between efficient female midwife and educated theoretical writer. Portraits of accoucheurs represent the unstable identity and rather flexible ‘masculinity’ of male practitioners who likewise blurred gendered categories. Some images identify male practitioners exclusively with theoretical knowledge, while others associate them more directly with the maternal qualities traditionally admired in female midwives.

Keywords: midwives; men-midwives; accoucheurs; medical portraiture; childbirth; Louise Bourgeois; France; obstetrical treatises; maternal experience


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