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Miss Whitehead - The Bank Nun

1869

$102.96
$128.7020% Off
£76
£9520% Off
€88.84
€111.0520% Off
CA$142.10
CA$177.6320% Off
A$159.19
A$198.9820% Off
CHF 82.95
CHF 103.6920% Off
MX$1,941.75
MX$2,427.1920% Off
NOK 1,054.11
NOK 1,317.6420% Off
SEK 993.96
SEK 1,242.4420% Off
DKK 663.05
DKK 828.8220% Off

About the Item

An urban legend maintains that early in the nineteenth century, one Miss Whitehead, colloquially known as “the Bank Nun,” frequently visited the Bank of England to accuse that institution of destroying her brother, a financial forger. In 1837, this obscure depiction reacted to that year’s major financial crisis by dredging up the Romantic-era case of financial forger Paul Whitehead and focusing on his surviving sister. Displacing her brother’s notoriety onto her, the image reinvents her as “the Bank Nun,” a grotesque magnet for lingering Romantic-era anxieties about the circulation of paper credit, financial forgery, and women. A succession of plagiarisms, retellings, and reappraisals of this portrait illustration made the Bank Nun a folk heroine of enduring resonance. Via this iconic figure, Romantic-era economic controversy haunts London today. Lithograph after a stipple engraving by Robert Cooper from Henry Wilson and James Caulfields Book of Wonderful Characters, Memoirs and Anecdotes, of Remarkable and Eccentric Persons in all ages and countries, John Camden Hotten, Piccadilly, London, 1869. Foxing Image: 18.0 x 11.0 cm In conservation mount: measures 31.5 x 25.0cm
  • Creation Year:
    1869
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 7.09 in (18 cm)Width: 4.34 in (11 cm)
  • More Editions & Sizes:
    1 of 1Price: $129
  • Medium:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Bournemouth, GB
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU1589215411102

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