A “True Commentary”: The Gendered Imagery of Harper’s Illuminated and New Pictorial Bible (1843–1846)

Recent scholarship on the American Bible has explored its production, interpretation, rhetorical usage, and authority. Less studied are the images of the illustrated Bibles that proliferated in the early nineteenth century. One of the most innovative and successful of these, Harper & Brothers’ artistic and highly ornamented Illuminated and New Pictorial Bible, serves as a locus point for understanding the significance of early nineteenth century Bibles’ illustrations. The Illuminated Bible’s emphasis on beauty, mercy, compassion, emotion, and sympathy reflected a shift toward a maternal Protestantism, while the sheer number of images and their embedding within the text serves as commentary on the text itself. This is a gendered commentary, interpreting the Bible through the lens of a feminine sentimental ideal, and serving as the basis of the Illuminated Bible’s reliability, trustworthiness, and authority. Stylistically, the artists of the Illuminated Bible, led by John Gadsby Chapman, employed a mishmash of baroque, neoclassical, rococo, and romantic elements to communicate a refined feminine sentimentality. The Illuminated Bible’s gendered imagery not only marketed the text to women consumers seeking to sacralize their parlors, but also interpreted the text in a sentimentalized fashion, communicating a refined, middle-class theology. Such “Christian refinement” was a juxtaposition of contrasting styles—classical and modern, Christian and pagan—reflecting the contradictory nature of Victorianism itself. The images of the Illuminated Bible enshrined these contradictions. Women were pious, submissive, maternal guardians of a sentimentalized domestic world, but they were also active, public spiritual agents, chosen by their Creator for a starring role in his narrative. The images of Harper’s Bible reflect the tensions inherent in America’s Protestant communities as women were celebrated for their piety even as they threatened the paternal order by using their religious identities to carve out public roles in biblical education, writing, and leadership of moral-reform associations.