Sentimental subjects span many genres of artistic expression, from highly finished exhibition watercolors to music sheet covers. In Victorian England these scenes of tender feeling became associated with the domestic sphere, as they were ideal for display in family rooms and traditionally female spaces such as the parlor. The popularity of sentimental pictures coincided with technological innovations in the print trade. This meant that images could be produced quickly and cheaply to maximize profit, thus opening the image market to a greater audience. Many works had mass appeal and were used in periodicals and advertising. This unashamed commercialism contributed to the reputation of sentiment as an expression of insincere emotion, and the popularity of such pictures was bound up in questions of taste. Paintings of children were thought to be intellectually undemanding and were often dismissed by critics. Yet some of the most acclaimed artists of the day took up the subject, and images of children proliferated across illustration and commercial graphics. The sentimentality and emotion of these pictures center on a new, 19th -century conception of childhood as an innocent, separate state to be shielded and prolonged. They seek a protective, affectionate pang from the viewer and evoke nostalgia for the inevitably fleeting nature of childhood. [http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/v/victorian-sentimental-prints-and-drawings/]