Quick Facts
Biography
Emma Brownlow (1832–1905) was a Victorian era artist who is best known for her paintings depicting scenes from life at the Foundling Hospital in London.
Life
Emma was the daughter of John Brownlow, a foundling who had been brought up in the Hospital. He had risen within the institution to become its director. John Brownlow had written several books about the institution, and a novel Hans Sloane (1831). The novel was an influence on Charles Dickens's later novel Oliver Twist, and its author is believed to be the model for the character Mr. Brownlow. Dickens was a friend of the Brownlow family.
Emma became an artist, producing a series of paintings in the 1850s and 1860s depicting scenes from life at the hospital. She also painted portraits and genre subjects. She exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts. Her most notable painting was The Foundling Restored to its Mother, exhibited at the RA in 1858.
She met the man she would marry, Donald King, through her involvement with the Hospital choir. King was a professional singer. The couple later moved to New Zealand. After her marriage, she rarely painted, devoting herself to her family.
Work
Brownlow created four paintings in the same format depicting scenes from Foundling Hospital life. One depicts the mother of a foundling receiving her child back into her custody; one depicts a child being Christened; another shows children in the choir; the last shows a child being prepared to leave the Hospital to enter the wider world. The paintings are noted for their inclusion of reproductions of famous paintings in the Hospital's collection, including two major works by William Hogarth and one by Benjamin West. Rachel Bowlby argues that these paintings "carried on her father's work, promoting the virtues and values of the institution through pictures of its daily life and rituals." Brownlow also painted smaller works depicting foundling children as well as portraits.