Tuesday 11 February 2014

Breastfeeding art

Once you start looking there are many beautiful works of art depicting breastfeeding. I have chosen a few to share. I like the stories they are telling, like that first one, set in a factory. I also like the fact that some of these pictures are going back as far as the early 17th Century but they all feel so close to us, it's very easy to relate to the mothers.



This is a fragment of 'La Cigarreras' (The Cigar Girls) by Gonzalo Bilbao, Seville, 1915. Mothers were allowed to take their baby with them to feed them and could use small factory cots.


'Les âges de l'ouvrier' by Brussels' artist Léon Frédéric, 1897. This is the third part of a triptych representing the life of workmen : the working men, the children and youth, the mothers and infants.


 'A Lapp Mother and Child' by Nico Wilhelm Jungmann, 1905. A well bundled up baby for breastfeeding in cold climate !


'Mother and Child', attributed to Hugues Talbot, beginning of the 21st Century. Such a homely feeling to this scene by the fire.


'The Family' by Dementi Shmarinov, 1957.


'Nurturer' by Anna Rose Bain. A modern breastfeeding scene, not so different from much older representations, such as this following one.


'Mother and Child' by Pieter de Grebber, 1622.





'The Holy Family with Sheperds' by Jacob Jordaens, 1616. Mary's milk is highly symbolic in religious art.


'Young mother nursing her child' by Mary Cassatt, 1906. So much tenderness in that picture... I love the gesture of the child reaching for his mother's mouth and the mother holding her baby's foot.


A Lady Nursing her Child in a Drawing Room, by François-Guillaume Ménageot, early 19th Century. She looks as if she just came back or was going to go out but her baby needed a feed !



'First Born' Gustave Leonard de Jonghe, 1863 . Peer support ? :)





Silence! By Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1759. You can just imagine how this young mother might feel, with one nay asleep in her arms, a very small child asleep too - which might be a rare occurrence - willing the oldest to not disturb them.



'Lady Mary Boyle and her son Charles' c.1700 by Sir Godfrey Kneller. An unusal portraying of an English lady.



Multi-tasking by Ricky Mujica. Do I need to add anything ?!


Bertha Wegmann c. 1900. I wonder what's the story behind that picture... Was the mother working in the fields, carrying her babies? Again, observe the deep tenderness between mother and child! Beautiful.