This study explores the dissemination and reception of the "Maria of Moulines" story from Laurence Sterne's "A Sentimental Journey." The story of Maria gained widespread circulation due to "fragmentation" practices, which involved reprinting the embedded narrative independently from the original text, making it memorable and easily recognizable. Maria's story was frequently republished in various anthologies and collections, such as "The New Novelist's Magazine" and "Sterne's Works," which utilized Sterne's innovative narrative techniques by presenting poignant scenes through selected illustrative fragments. Maria's image also found metonymic expression in visual culture, with her portraits exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts by painters such as Burdel, Gardiner, Hurstone, Wright, and Kauffman. Kauffman's painting was reproduced as engravings by Ryland and widely disseminated. These visual works served as interpretive media, hinting at narratives beyond the images themselves. From the perspective of material reading, this paper examines how Kauffman's interpretation of Maria's image achieved cross-media transmission and its reproduction on items such as silk embroidery pictures and mourning jewelry, tracing the history of interpretation and reception of Maria's character. These material media not only carried textual experiences but also facilitated the dissemination of Sterne's works, allowing Maria's image to gradually detach from the novel's matrix and gain independent significance. Based on literary-visual cross-media migration theory, this paper focuses on the process of literary illustrations being widely reproduced across various media, analyzing how they are repeatedly visualized and embedded into consumption frameworks of different reading forms, thereby influencing readers' consumption experiences.

The Sorrowful Maria: Artistic Reproduction by Sterne, Kauffman, and Ryland

This section explores the reproduction and reinterpretation of Sterne's Maria across different artistic forms. Sterne depicted Maria twice, in "Tristram Shandy" and "A Sentimental Journey," with the latter portraying her adrift after her father's death, endowing her image with an ethereal quality. Kauffman created a portrait of Maria based on this, meticulously rendering Sterne's descriptions of her attire and details. Through visual representation, the portrait evoked emotional resonance in viewers, transforming Maria into a channel for sentiment. Ryland reproduced Kauffman's painting as black-and-white and colored engravings, which circulated widely, becoming focal points for viewer contemplation and empathy. This promoted visual perception education and rendered Maria's image tangible within commodity culture, influencing contemporary cultural and artistic creation.

The Silk-Embroidered Maria

This section delves into the dual role of Ryland's engravings in cultivating empathy and serving as paradigms for female craft education, particularly focusing on how upper- and middle-class women improved their embroidery skills by copying these engravings. Silk embroidery works were not mere replicas of Kauffman's designs; they integrated various skills of the embroiderers, including layered stitching with colored silk threads and silk watercolor rendering techniques, which were crucial for depicting character details. By skillfully manipulating materials, embroiderers not only expressed gender identity but also activated multimodal visual narratives of Maria's story through color. In the creative process, they treated embroidery threads as writing tools, reconstructing viewers' perceptions of Maria's image and manipulating the semiotic modes of the medium to convey meaning. The details and fabric textures of silk embroidery became key to re-narration, enabling viewers to interact with sentimental themes, especially highlighting Maria's inner emotions to evoke empathy. Often displayed in domestic spaces, these works embodied the diligence and sensibility associated with femininity, promoting gender identity construction and moral education. Embroiderers employed various stitching methods and color schemes to personalize Kauffman's character design, even creating entirely new "originals." Their creative reproduction transcended Benjamin's concepts of "cult value" and "exhibition value." Through diverse visual adjustments, embroiderers reshaped Maria's image—from melancholy contemplation to lovelorn madness, to hopeful anticipation of future marriage—demonstrating their ability to re-narrate visual stories.

Mourning Jewelry: Love Memorials and Emotional Sustenance

This section examines how the image of "Maria of Moulines" from Sterne's "A Sentimental Journey" was reshaped through material-visual media, particularly the role of mourning jewelry. While silk embroideries adhered to the dimensions of Ryland's engravings, they failed to convey the emotions associated with objects of "mad love." In contrast, Lady Templetown's circular metal pendant design was widely applied in Wedgwood's products, becoming part of cultural representation. However, these monochromatic jasperware items, lacking the color and narrativity of Kauffman's original, could not establish emotional identification and merely signaled the wearer's belonging to polite society. Georgian mourning jewelry expressed emotions through wear on specific occasions. Kauffman's image of Maria was used in mourning jewelry from the 1780s onward, becoming a symbol for mourners, a vessel for resonance, and an emblem of melancholy. Enamel artists adapted Kauffman's designs for jewelry-making, transforming Maria's image into an emotional carrier that evoked viewers' sense of loss. Despite variations in size, pattern design, and craftsmanship, mourning jewelry participated in emotional expression through its material载体. In mourning jewelry, Maria's image acquired new meanings, serving as a symbol for mourners' emotional sustenance while reflecting how literary material culture influenced the understanding of literary works at the time.

Love Tokens and Marriage Tankards: The Affectionate Maria

Love Tokens and Marriage Tankards: The Affectionate Maria

This section explores the reshaping of the "Maria of Moulines" image from Sterne's "A Sentimental Journey" through material-visual media such as love tokens and marriage tankards. Unlike mourning brooches, love tokens presented Maria against colorful backgrounds, making her image less melancholic and more upright. By situating her within limited space closer to Silvio, the tokens imbued her with vivid vitality. Bordered with green enamel symbolizing hope, the tokens emphasized emotional bonds and the commitment to shared marital life. In Kauffman's design for love tokens, Maria appears thoughtful but not despondent, with changes in the小狗's gaze and posture emphasizing emotional dependency. The image of Maria on marriage tankards further rewrote her story, highlighting her as a loyal lover. Appearing alongside Charlotte, it elevated the act of mourning into a celebration of love and emotional commitment. These material媒介 reconstructions not only reshaped Maria's image but also reinforced her social attributes, influencing people's understanding and interpretation of the character.