A Domestic Scene

Artist: French 18th Century Artist (French, not listed)

Original Dimensions: 14 3/4" x 19"

Location: National Gallery of Art, London

About Artwork: (Late 1770s) "Scenes of mothers and children were fashionable in eighteenth-century France, much encouraged by the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who advocated a ‘natural’ approach to child-rearing. A young mother is sitting in a beam of light at a table with three of her infants wriggling on her lap. An older child is seated at the table, while another plays in the shadows on the floor and a baby’s cradle is rocked by an old woman. The young servant’s headdress and the straw-covered flask of wine on the table suggest that the artist was in or knew Italy. They were clearly familiar with Greuze’s painting The Well-Beloved Mother (private collection, Madrid) as the group of the mother and children is very similar. We do not know who painted this picture. Although Jean-Honoré Fragonard produced sketchy interior scenes with working women during his first stay in Italy in 1756–61, the brushwork does not resemble his extremely fluid way of painting." - (National Gallery of Art, London)