Art Institute of Chicago

Mother and Her Family in the Country

Henry Fuseli

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

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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