Mme. H and Her Children
1815
This fashionable family group is incomplete—contemporary viewers would have known from the profile portrait on the column that the father is away at war. This was a reference to a famous story, told by the Roman writer Pliny the Elder, of a woman who traced the shadow of her lover’s profile to keep his memory alive when he went off to do battle. The anecdote also asserts the importance of drawing as the primary artistic tool during the neoclassical period.
The painting is unique in this gallery in placing the woman outdoors, rather than within the traditional domestic interior. Perhaps this is because the husband’s absence compels the mother to assume the protective male role, suggested by her sheltering gestures.
Oil on canvas
65 1/8 x 48 1/4 in. (165.4 x 122.6 cm)
Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection
62.75
Provenance: Max R. Schweitzer, New York, until 1962; purchased by Seattle Art Museum, February 26, 1962
Photo: Paul Macapia