The Song of the Shirt

A domestic interior: a woman and two girls sit around a table sewing, a dust sheet is spread on the floor. The girl on the left is asleep scissors in hand, the other two continue sewing.
Frank Holl’s Song of the Shirt c.1874 reflects the bleaker side of life. Holl focused upon the hardships of the poor in Victorian England and the title is taken from a poem by Thomas Hood, which relates the plight of a needle woman employed on pitiful wages.