ABSTRACT
Two images produced for an English audience in 1857 encapsulate the connections between home, nation and empire that are the focus of this chapter. The first, entitled ‘The sinews of Old England’ (Figure 4.1), is a painting by George Elgar Hicks, and is a classic representation of the gendered spaces of home and nation. The married couple and their child are pictured on the threshold of their home, with the man – a muscular embodiment not only of manhood but also of the English nation – gazing beyond the frame to the world of physical work beyond. In contrast, his wife is portrayed as a domestic subject, responsible for the well-ordered domesticity that is visible beyond the threshold. The title of the painting implies that families like this, pictured on a pastoral threshold between masculine work and feminized domesticity, embody an idealized idea of English nationhood. The family home appears as an integral location for imagining the nation as home.
