Art Institute of Chicago

Mother and Her Family in the Country

Henry FuseliLinkedCulture matchlcp-51a294594c6f

Date: 1806/07
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
Culture: Switzerland
Department: Prints and Drawings
Institution: Art Institute of Chicago
Object ID: 94080

From the Art Institute of Chicago record

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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Provenance & credit

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Credit line: Margaret Day Blake Purchase Fund income
Provenance: Agnew and Sons, London [invoice]. M. Knoedler and Company, New York, by 1973 [Schiff 1973]. Roland Balay, New York [invoice]. Michelle Bertotti, New York [invoice]. Artemis S. A., Luxembourg, by 1977 [Artemis 1977]. Sold by E. V. Thaw and Company, New York, to the Art Institute, 1977.

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Object type: AAT300033973

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