I’ve been working for money again, so I’m not going to have time to continue the story of Diane the vampire girl today.
Instead here’s a picture of a woman in a slightly different supernatural category. I don’t know why she’s flying her broom backwards. Perhaps she’s parking.
This is really funny – parking backwards? Brilliant!
Parking is the only explanation I could think of. Just outside the frame of this drawing, there’s a parking bay of brooms, handles in towards the curb, outside a clothes shop.
I suppose the Victorian – or Edwardian – illustrator had to have her riding side-saddle because painting a woman riding a long hard thing, with a bush at one end, between her legs would have been a bit … indelicate.
And if she was riding her broom side-saddle but facing forwards, he’d have to make decisions about whether to paint in her nipples (Waterhouse, the pre-Raphaelite painter, painted a lot of breasts but he never gave them nipples).
And then there’s the pubic hair issue.
In those far-off Victorian days women had pubic hair, according to photographic evidence. And I don’t blame them; I wouldn’t let a Victorian cut-throat razor get anywhere near anybody’s lady parts.
But look at Victorian paintings of naked women, and you’ll wonder where all the body hair went. Ah well.