Marguerite Gérard
Motherhood
1794-1799
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Marguerite Gérard
Motherhood
1794-1799
Physical Qualities
Oil on wood panel, Framed: 31 5/8 × 27 in. (80.3 × 68.6 cm.)
Unframed: 24 × 20 in. (61 × 50.8 cm.)
Credit Line
Bequest of Elise Agnus Daingerfield
Object Number
1944.102
Evoking the canonic arrangement of the Christian Mary and Jesus, Marguerite Gérard’s mother figure receives her child’s kiss amid a sea of billowing, luxurious fabrics. The high arched architecture and elaborate lamp reinforce the sense of a religious setting, while casually placed, elegant furnishings suggest the secular affluence of this unidentified family. A smiling witness to this mystical scene, perhaps a servant, and a cat fill out this ideal presentation of maternal bliss.
Eighteenth-century French society saw an explosion of images depicting the joys of maternity. A new ideal of the family was promoted in artworks like Motherhood and by moralizing philosophers such as Denis Diderot and Jean Jacques Rousseau. This overturned a centuries-old practice among the upper class of entrusting infants to a wet nurse and sending children away for an institutional education.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by bequest 1944; Elise Carroll Agnus Daingerfield (1871–1942), Baltimore; Daniel H. Fair & Co., Philadelphia, 1929; Arthur Tooth Gallery, London, 1928; Yorke and Harcourt Sale, Christie, Manson and Woods London, May 6, 1927 (sold as “property of a gentleman”); Collection of Sir Philip Albert Gustave David Sassoon, 3rd Baronet (1888–1939), London, by 1913.
Imagining Home
Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400-1800
Jacobs Wing Rotations 2022
Jacobs Wing Rotations 2023
J. Doin, "Margurite Gérard" Gazette des Beaux Arts Vol. II, 1912, p. 446.
"Burlington Fine Arts Club: French Art of the Eighteenth Century: French Art of the Eighteenth Century,” (1914), p. 73, no. 94, pl. XLVIII.
Christie, Manson, and Woods, Choice Pictures of the French School [Yorke/Harcourt sale] (May 6, 1927, no. 126).
George Levitine, “Marguerite Gerard and her Stylistic Significance,” Annual III Studies in Honor of Gertrude Rosenthal, Part One, (The Baltimore Museum of Art, 1968), pp. 21-30, no. 2, ill. p. 22.
Sally Wells-Robertson, "Marguerite Gerard: 1791-1837," Vol. 2, pt. 1, (unpublished doctoral dissertation, 1978), p. 815.
Stewart Buettner, “Images of Modern Motherhood in the Art of Morisot, Cassatt, Modersohn-Becker, Kollwitz.” Woman’s Art Journal 7, no. 2 (1986): 14-21, ill. fig. 1, pp.14-15.
Olwen Hufton, The Prospect Before Her: A History of Women in Western Europe (New York : Alfred Knopf, 1996), fig.26 ill. (plates unpaginated)
Nancy Heller, Women Artists: An Illustrated History. (Abbeville Press, 1997), pp. 68-69. ill. no.40.
Lesley Walker, A Mother’s Love: Crafting Feminine Virtue in Enlightenment France (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2008), pp. 114-115, fig. 9 ill.
Carole Blumenfeld, Marguerite Gérard 1761-1837 (Montreuil, France: Gourcuff Gradenigo, 2019), color ill., pp. 120-122, 232 no. 163P. (English Edition)
Carole Blumenfeld, Marguerite Gérard 1761-1837 (Montreuil, France: Gourcuff Gradenigo, 2019), color ill., pp. 120-122, 232 no. 163P. (French Edition)
Lerner, Loren. “The Infant, the Mother, and the Breast in the Paintings of Marguerite Gérard,” in: Domines Veliki, M., Duffy, C. (eds) Romanticism and the Cultures of Infancy. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), pp.65-89. color ill. fig. 4.5 p. 80.
Shah, Jasmine. “Marguerite Gérard January 28, 1761 – May 18, 1837” A Space of Their Own, https://artmusem.sitehost.iu.edu/space-of-their-own/artists/20 (Accessed May 8, 2025)
Hall Smith, Bevery. “Looking at the Masters: Marguerite Gerard.” The Chestertown Spy (May 5, 2022) https://chestertownspy.org/2022/05/05/looking-at-the-masters-marguerite-gerard/
Andaleeb Badiee Banta, Alexa Greist, and Theresa Kutasz Christensen. Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400-1800. Goose Lane, 2023, pp. 216-217, ill.
Sherry Piland, Women Artists: An Historical, Contemporary, and Feminist Bibliography (Metuchen, NJ and London: Scarecrow Press, 1994), pp. 143-45.
Delia Gaze, Dictionary of Women Artists, Vol. I (London and Chicago : Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers) 1997, pp.580-581. (2001 edition, pp. 319-21).
Rachel Epp Buller, Modern Motherhood and Female Sociability in the Art of Marguerite Gérard.” Reconciling Art and Mothering (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012), pp.15-30.
Joseph Sassoon, The Sassoons: the great global merchants and the making of an empire (New York: Pantheon Books, 2022).
Esther da Costa Meyer and Claudia J. Nahson. The Sassoons (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023).
Delia Gaze, Dictionary of Women Artists, Vol. I (London and Chicago : Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers) 1997, pp.580-581. (2001 edition, pp. 319-21).
Rachel Epp Buller, Modern Motherhood and Female Sociability in the Art of Marguerite Gérard.” Reconciling Art and Mothering (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012), pp.15-30.
Joseph Sassoon, The Sassoons: the great global merchants and the making of an empire (New York: Pantheon Books, 2022).
Esther da Costa Meyer and Claudia J. Nahson. The Sassoons (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023).