#genre art

[eirene]

An Eastern Lily, 1885

Edwin Long

[abnormes]

Spirit, George Roux (1885)

[lionofchaeronea]

Women Watching Stars, Ōta Chōu, 1936

[leatherandmossprints]

‘The Quiet Pet’ (detail) by John William Godward, c. 1906.

[cinematic-phosphenes]

Woodblock prints (1700s) by Suzuki Harunobu

[classic-art-favourites]

Merchant's Wife at Tea by Boris Kustodiev, 1918.

[liturgical-agenda]

Laughing Girl, 1882 by Raffaello Sorbi

[from-a-spiders-web]

The Pride of Dijon, 1879 William John Hennessy

[jeannepompadour]

"Stylish women strolling" by Basile Lemeunier, 1900

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Victor-Gabriel Gilbert (French, 1847-1935) Le déjeuner du chat, 1879

[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.

[eirene]

The Death of Cleopatra, 1890

John Collier

[mrmousetolliver]

Bathers (c.1893) painted by Paul Cezanne

[lionofchaeronea]

The Wedding Register, Edmund Blair Leighton, 1920

[leatherandmossprints]

‘View of the Salon Carré at the Louvre’ by Alexandre Brun, c. 1880.

[cinematic-phosphenes]

Edo Era woodblock prints by: Suzuki Harunobu, Utagawa Hiroshige, Ohara Shōson, and Hokusai