Rossetti Context

The Victorian Fallen Women

• ‘Fallen Women’ referred to women who has lost her innocence, such as prostitutes, and those who had had sex outside of marriage

The Contagious Disease Act (1864)

• Police could arrest women who they suspected of being prostitutes and conduct forced medical examinations. If infected, women were placed in a hospital for three months (extended to one year in the 1866 act)

St. Mary’s Highgate Penitentiary

• A reform house to reintegrate the fallen women back into society

• Rossetti volunteered at Highgate Penitentiary from the late 1850-1870, a place “for the reformation of penitent fallen women.’

• Highgate focused on redemption through prayer and rehabilitation. Rossetti fostered a sister-saviour relationship with these fallen women

‘Found’ by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

• Represents the social problems in society which results in a woman subjecting to prostitution and her loss of innocence

‘The Awakening Conscience’ by William Holman Hunt

• A woman realising her degraded state in society by falling into temptation