On the Bed 

Jean-Louis Forain made this print, “On the Bed,” using etching, a medium that allowed for detailed tonal variation. Forain’s social milieu was that of the cabarets and cafés of Montmartre, a vibrant and rapidly changing district of Paris. His art often engaged with the lives of ordinary people, and this print is no exception. The woman depicted in the print is probably a prostitute or a kept woman; she reclines on her bed, shielding her face, in a gesture that conveys the shame and misery that was the frequent reality for women living on the margins of Parisian society at this time. We know from contemporary documents such as police records and newspaper reports that there was a huge population of transient women living in poverty in Paris at this time, and that the institutions of the state did little or nothing to help them. As art historians, we consult these kinds of sources to understand the social context in which art is made, and to consider the ways it might serve as a form of social critique.