Ref:  6158

A fascinating pub sign, hand-painted on metal, from the mid-20th century we have applied it to board for hanging - this is a traditional English pub name and image sometimes called the ‘Quiet Woman’, ‘Good Woman’ or as here, ‘Silent Woman’. Later interpretations regarded the sign as referring to a gossiping pub landlady who was punished for revealing secrets but in fact folklorists believe the sign or emblem is much older, less banal and more subversive than this, referring back to Anne Boleyn, herself beheaded by Henry VIII, and even before then to Christian female saints like St Osyth beheaded by heathens, a spring bursting forth where her head fell, so as an emblem this image or sign stands for the good wife ‘silenced’ but still with voice, commemorated as an opponent to the establishment, a example of virtue and standing by one’s truth. What appears at first as ribald misogeny turns out to be the reverse.

English      mid-20th cent.

H: 82cm (32.3in)
W: 64cm (25.2in)
D: 1.5cm (0.6in)

£650