Sunday, June 1st, 2014
Images of Mothers with Children
Over a year ago, I began collecting images of mothers who were with either a little baby or a young child. I have enough that I want to start a compilation here, so that I can keep track of them all. I know there are hundreds of works of art depicting mothers and children (particularly ones of the Madonna and Child), but these ones are my absolute favorites:
Berthe Morisot, "Le Berceau," 1872
Gustave Klimt, detail from "The Three Ages of Woman," 1908
Kitagawa Utamaro, Midnight-The Hours of the Rat-Mother and Sleepy Child, Edo period, ca. 1790 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
This woodblock print by Utamaro is from a series called Fuzoku Bijin Tokei (Women’s Daily Customs). To illustrate the “daily custom” of midnight, Utamaro depicts a mother sleepily emerging from her mosquito net to attend to her baby (who in turn rubs sleep from its own eyes). Having lost many hours of sleep myself when my son was a newborn, I can relate! A little more information about this print is available HERE.
Marie Danforth Page, "Her Littlest One," 1914 (National Museum of Women in the Arts)
Her Littlest One was made during a period in which Marie Danforth Page created a lot of noncommissioned paintings of mothers with children. Mary Cassatt’s art had a lot of influence on Page at this time, as did Flemish art from the 17th century.1
Eric Gill, "Madonna and Child," 1925. Wood engraving on paper (Tate)
William Sergeant Kendall, At the End of the Day, 1900 (Seattle Art Museum)
Mary Cassatt, "Breakfast in Bed," 1897 (Huntington Library)
What are your favorite images of mothers with children? Why do you particularly like them?
1 Museum label for Marie Danforth Page, Her Littlest One, Washington, D.C., National Museum of Women in the Arts, June 11, 2013.
