Mother and Her Family in the Country
Henry Fuseli
1806–1807
- Medium
- Pen and black ink, and brush and black and gray wash, with watercolor and traces of white gouache, over graphite, on ivory laid paper
- Dimensions
- 45.7 × 31.1 cm (18 × 12 1/4 in.)
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Tags
drawings (visual works)motherspaintgraphiteinkpen and ink drawingsgouachewashprints and drawingwatercolorpaperchildrenpaper (fiber product)water-base paint
About
Notwithstanding its ostensibly domestic theme, there is something slightly sinister in Fuseli’s rendering of a mother and her family, a study for a painting. The younger woman dangles a butterfly above the infant as if it were a toy, her menacing hairpin in frightening proximity to both insect and child. The seated woman presents the infant as if he were a sacrificial offering, and the fetishistic attention Fuseli pays to hair and dress strikes a disarmingly discordant note.
