Mary Simpson - Victorian Children
Mary Simpson (メアリー・シンプソン)
18世紀のまだ幼児売春が西洋社会でも大っぴらに行われていた (かどうかは、実際のところどうなのか知らないのだけど) 時代に撮影された写真で、この被写体の少女はの名前は Mary Simpson。この写真は1871年に撮影されたもので、撮影された当時、Mary Simpson はまだ10歳か11歳で、この時既に妊娠していたという。
フィリップ・アリエス (Philippe Ariès) の 『〈子供〉の誕生』 などを読めば歴史の中でいつ頃 ｢子供｣ という存在が誕生したのかが分かったりするのだろうが、残念ながら未だに読んだことがないので、適当なことを言うと、｢子供｣ が今の様に子供として認識されたのはそんなに昔のことではなく、近代を迎えるか迎えないかという頃になってようやく発見されたものなのだろう。
子供の人権だとか子供の権利といったものが存在していなかった時代に撮影されたこの写真は、なんともいえない複雑な感想を抱かせる。
ちなみにポストしたこの Mary Simpson の写真は、少女コレクターとして有名な Graham Ovenden らが編集した "Victorian Children" が出典で、以前 Graham Ovenden の情報をまとめていた時に見付けた。
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2 comments:
Mary Simpson was also known as Minnie Rae and as Mrs. Barry or Mrs. Barrie. Following the death of her parents, she worked as a preteen prostitute in 19th century San Francisco. She was called "The Little Countess" by Joshua A. Norton, the supposedly mad man who proclaimed himself "Emperor of these United States and Protector of Mexico."
She traveled to the United Kingdom as Mary Simpson (probably posing as the daughter of her lover), but while there claimed to be the wife of a Mr. Barry or Barrie. Born the same year as J. M. Barrie, she apparently played both mother and wife to him in their games and was the model for Wendy of Peter Pan and Wendy.
The 1871 photo shows her pregnant, and appears with several others in Victorian Children which also includes semi-nude photos of Alice Liddell. Alice was the model for Lewis Carroll's title character in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This may have been an inspiration for Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie, who produced the "porno-graphic novel" Lost Girls about Alice, Dorothy (of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz), and Wendy.
Click on my name for a link to more info about the little girl who became a woman all too soon.
Lost Girls is great. But Alan Moore switched the characters. He took the innocent Alice and Dorothy and made them sexually experienced, and took the sexually experienced Minnie Rae and made her a relative innocent.
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