The Little Foot Page
Artist: Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale (British, 1872 – 1945)
Date: 1905 first exhibited
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, England
Description
This painting illustrates lines from a traditional folk ballad variously called ‘Child Waters’ or ‘Burd Helen’ from Thomas Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765). The ballad describes the loyalty of Ellen who is bearing the child of her heartless lover Child Waters. He insists Ellen serve him as a page. She is shown dressed in male clothing and just about to cut her long beautiful hair so she can pass as a boy. Her dress and wimple are discarded in the foreground.















