Henry Fuseli
Swiss, active in England, 1741-1825
Mother and Her Family in the Country
INV-9408
Henry Fuseli
Swiss, active in England, 1741-18251806/07
Mother and Her Family in the Country
Henry Fuseli Swiss, active in England, 1741-1825 →pen and ink drawingsdrawings (visual works)
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
Dimensions
45.7 × 31.1 cm (18 × 12 1/4 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Margaret Day Blake Purchase Fund income
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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