10 Famous Mother and Child Paintings

Even though many of us might be self isolating or under lock down this Mother’s day and are unable to celebrate Mother’s day with our mothers, we’ve compiled 10 famous mother and child paintings that illustrate how much we all love our mums and how much they love us.

1. Klimt’s Mother &  Child

This famous beautiful mother and child painting is painted by Austrian artist, Gustav Klimt. The original painting measures 180 cm × 180 cm (71 in × 71 in). The image above of Mother and Child is only one segment of the painting, the whole work actually shows the three ages of women in different stages of life. The mother and child, which you can see above are the only two figures that are touching in the whole artwork.

2. Da Vinci’s Madonna Litta

The Madonna Litta depicts the Virgin Mary breastfeeding Christ and illustrates motherly love. The blue cloak of Mary symbolizes the Church and her red dress is a symbol of the passion of Christ. The original Madonna Litta painting is actually in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and only measures 42 cm x 33 cm.

3. William A Bouguereau’s Mother and Child

Bouguereau, was a French academic artist who enjoyed particular success in France and America painting modern interpretations of classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female human body. This artwork above, as you can see is a charming painting of a doting mother holding her baby.

4. Cassatt’s Mother and Child

Mary Cassatt was an American artist, who is famous for painting and drawing private moments of women in their everyday lives. Reading, taking care of their children, taking tea etc. If you take a look at her artwork you can see she did not seek to sentimentalise her subjects but rather depict the mothers she painted as honest and clean-living women.

5. Monet’s Madame Monet and Child

This famous mother and child painting by Claude Monet shows Monet’s wife with a child in Argenteuil, where they lived for 5 years between 1872 – 1877. Whilst Monet is primarily known for his paintings of water lilies, at the start of his career, he actually concentrated on portraits.

6. Renoir’s Gabrielle et Jean

This charming Impressionist painting was painted in 1895 and depicts Renoir‘s son Jean with their faithful servant Gabrielle. The painting measures 65cm x 54cm and is housed in the Musée de l’Orangerie. You can see that the background is quite indistinct and you can barely recognize that the figure Gabrielle is holding is of a cow.

7. Crespi’s Madonna and Child

This is such a touching and beautiful mother and child painting.  You can’t help but feel the tenderness of the way the Madonna looks at her baby. You can of course commission a faithful fine art reproduction of it here – Mother and Child Paintings

8. Calderon’s Lord – Thy Will Be Done Painting

Calderon was a French pre-Raphaelite artist. The title of this painting is Lord – Thy will be done and clearly invites you to speculate about the meaning of the painting. However there are clues in the painting to help guide you. We can see a mother cradling her baby whom appear to be living in difficult circumstances. The carpet is badly worn for example and there is a loaf of bread on the table, so she still has her “daily bread” a reference to the Lord’s Prayer, the title of course, is also a reference to that. In the background, we see an image of a man, perhaps the woman’s husband as she does wear a wedding ring. The crumpled newspaper on the floor maybe suggests that the lady has been following news of a military campaign.

Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida’s On the beach

I love the natural feel of this painting that Sorolla has created. Sorolla was a Spanish artist. His most typical works are characterized by a dexterous representation of the people and landscape under the bright sunlight of Spain and sunlit water.

10. Leighton’s Music Lesson

In Leighton’s Music Lesson,  we see a lady teach a young girl how to play the guitar (the guitar is possibly of Syrian origin).  In 1857, after Leighton’s first trip to Algeria he began to get a huge interest in Eastern art and architecture, which we can see in this painting.

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We’re a fine art reproduction company called Fabulous Masterpieces that solely concentrates on painting museum quality art reproductions onto canvas. We’ve even produced a magazine on the topic to help you out if you want to learn more about fine art copies. Just click on the image above.

Bye for now x