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.
Linked open data
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- Object type
- AAT300033973
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