Wallace Collection Online - Mother and Children

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Hippolyte (Paul) Delaroche (1797 - 1856) Mother and Children France: Date: c. 1843 - 1848

Object Type: Painting

Medium: Oil on mahogany panel

Image size: 14.4 x 13.8 cm
Diameter: 13 cm, painted area
Object size: 30 x 30 x 6.5 cm

Inv: P355

Location: West Gallery III Staircase

‘Mother and Children’ is a version of a much larger picture, ‘A Mother’s Joy’ (Luxembourg, Musée J.-P. Pescatore), painted in 1843 for Willem II of Holland. It seems in part to be an homage to Raphael’s famous representations of the Virgin and Child, and there are also parallels with eighteenth-century art. ‘Mother and Children’ is painted in a soft buttery technique reminiscent of Fragonard, and its subject recalls the Enlightenment cult of motherhood; though the severity of the mother in Delaroche’s scene is exceptional. It is almost certainly a pendant to 'A Child learning to Read' (P358) - the two works contrast wealth, emotional mood and physical type. Parenthood was a matter of great concern to Delaroche, one of two sons who himself was the father of two sons.

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