Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House and the changing status of women in the 1920s

A girl with two infants c.1923
RCIN 926854
This drawing can perhaps be read as a reflection of concern for disadvantaged people, or of an artistic interest in the fashion for ‘picturesque poverty’. A young girl has been left in charge of her two siblings, the responsibility of which can be seen in her serious expression and in her awkward stance in supporting the infant in her arms. There is an uncharacteristic freedom of execution in this drawing by the illustrator Gordon Browne, who is better known for his painstaking illustrations of plucky young men in children’s story books.