Images of Breastfeeding in Early Byzantine Art

Abstract

Compared to early representations of the Virgin Mary suckling the baby Jesus, images of ordinary, human women breastfeeding in early Byzantine art have received little attention. This chapter attempts to redress this situation by identifying and contextualizing such images dating from the fourth down to the seventh century AD. What becomes apparent from this first survey of the material is that, while in real life breastfeeding was an act as common as it was necessary, it was rarely represented in art. Still, the theme was introduced into a variety of media, and in diverse settings, funerary, secular, and religious. Furthermore, rather than being treated as a simple genre scene, it appears to have served a symbolic or an allegorical function, whether to identify a woman as a mother in funerary portraiture, to promote dynastic claims on imperial coinage, or to articulate ideas about fertility, nurture, vulnerability, dependency, and protection in both private and public contexts. Given its semiotic potential, the rarity of its occurrence in early Byzantine art remains a puzzle, though some thoughts on the artistic, social, and religious factors that may have informed this treatment are offered at the end in lieu of a conclusion.

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