Beware the Wandering Womb—Painterly Reflections of Early Gynecological Theory

Abstract

Ailing women languishing in their sickrooms are common subjects in seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting. Because the women in these paintings are usually young, pretty, affluent, and apparently in good health but for their listless poses and the concern shown by the physicians and maids who attend them, scholars have traditionally interpreted the scenes as moralizing sermons against illegitimate pregnancy or as satires against “quack” doctors. However, the medical context of the time suggests that these paintings actually reflect early gynecological theories, which assumed a uterine origin for all diseases of women. The details within the paintings point to the symptoms of, and attempted cures for hysteria, or furor uterinus, a female illness commonly diagnosed in the seventeenth century, but with a history as old as medicine itself.