Maternal Affection
Artist: Louis Jean François Lagrenée (French, 1725 - 1805)
Original Dimensions: 17 1/8" x 13 5/8"
Location: National Gallery of Art, London
About Artwork: (1775) "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." - (National Gallery of Art, London)
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