#french painter

[constanzarte]

William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Admiration. 1897.

[benitasroom]

Nymphéas (1907) — Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926)

[the-cricket-chirps]

Eugene Seguy, Winged Patterns I

[dark-longings]

Femme assoupie sur un lit or L’Indolente, 1899. Pierre Bonnard.

[mote-historie]

William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Child Braiding A Crown, detail, 1874.

[solcattus]

Modestie, 1898

By Charles-Lucien Léandre

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

William Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825-1905) L'Amour et Psyché, 1899

[lepetitdragonvert]

Orpheus tries to hold on to Eurydice

.c. 1791

Artist : François Gérard (1770-1837)

[wyntersart]

The Youth of Bacchus by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1884)

[edwardian-girl-next-door]

~ Édouard Debat-Ponsan Portrait de mademoiselle Élisabeth de Vilmorin (1891) (detail)

via edarlein11 on pinterest

[diemelusine]

Aline Marie Chazal Tristán, "The Artist's Mother" (c. 1889) by Paul Gauguin. Staatsgalerie Stuttgart.

[theaskew]

Marc Chagall (Russian-French 1887-1985), Les Amoureux (Lovers), 1928. Oil on canvas, 45 x 35 in.

[liturgical-agenda]

Baigneuses (Bathers), 1885 by Louis Courtat

[the-cricket-chirps]

Felix Vallotton

Nude

1912

[byronthesecond]

Jules Joseph Lefebvres La Cicala The Grasshopper 1872

[galleryofart]

Maternal Affection

Artist: Louis Jean François Lagrenée (French, 1725-1805)

Date: 1755

Medium: Oil on Copper

Collection: The National Gallery, London

Description

In this exquisite small painting on copper, three women are looking after two infants in a grand neoclassical setting. One woman breastfeeds an infant, while another holds up a second baby for a kiss. A woman to the left is busy arranging bedding in a wooden cradle. The open loggia and warm light suggest that the scene takes place in a southern climate. To an eighteenth-century audience, the women’s clothing would have been understood as antique Roman dress.

The painting shares similarities with a series of eight paintings by Lagrenée at Stourhead in Wiltshire. It may be Lagrenée’s painting formerly at Stourhead, described as ‘Maternal Affection – a beautiful group’. The subject was of special interest for a contemporary audience as motherhood, and particularly the practice of breastfeeding one’s own children rather than sending them out to a wet nurse, was much discussed in both France and England at the time.