About this artwork
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.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Prints and Drawings
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Artist
- Henry Fuseli
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Title
- Mother and Her Family in the Country
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Place
- Switzerland (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- 1806–1807
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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
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Dimensions
- 45.7 × 31.1 cm (18 × 12 1/4 in.)
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Credit Line
- Margaret Day Blake Purchase Fund income
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Reference Number
- 1977.310
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IIIF Manifest
- https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/94080/manifest.json