3-002-780 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Mother and Children, c1850. It is twilight and in this dimly lighted cottage interior, a mother kneels against a chair with her hands clasped in prayer. Seated at her side is a young child holding a pot. In the doorway, an older daughter appears anxiously to be awaiting her father's return, imparting a tension to the scene. Both the mother and daughter wear typical village dress: a cap, a "casaque" (or loose jacket), and wool stockings. White has been used to heighten the mother's headgear and tunic and to indicate the waning light in the sky. Elsewhere, the artist has adopted a tonalist rather than linear approach, working with charcoal and exploiting the texture of the paper.