IN HONOR OF MOTHER’S DAY, NINE WORKS FROM THE HERITAGE ARCHIVES CELEBRATING THE VARIOUS STATES AND STAGES OF MOTHERHOOD
On May 9, 1914, Woodrow Wilson issued a presidential proclamation announcing the first Mother’s Day holiday. By Wilson’s decree, the second Sunday of every May would be a day to honor mothers across America. But for centuries before that, and far beyond the bounds of the United States, artists had been celebrating maternity in every medium imaginable, with images of Mary and Jesus serving as some of the earliest portrayals of motherhood in art. Just in time for Mother’s Day, which falls on May 11 this year, we’ve rounded up a century’s worth of maternal works from the Heritage archives. In each work, a mother is depicted with her child or children, whose ages range from infancy to adulthood, proving, as always, that a mother’s work is never done.
Theodore Robinson (American, 1852-1896)
Normandy Mother and Child (Marie Trognon and Baby), 1892
In this late 19th-century painting, a fair-haired young working-class woman whom Robinson identified as Marie Trognon is shown seated with an infant in her lap, while a backdrop of emerald foliage is rendered in energetic French Impressionist brushwork. During the early 1890s, Robinson employed other Trognon family members as models, and Marie was the perfect subject, embodying the classic theme of maternity while also providing an idealized vision of everyday peasant life. Considered among Robinson’s finest efforts, this painting was chosen by the prominent art dealer William Macbeth to be included in Robinson’s first one-man exhibition in New York in 1895. The work realized $645,000 in a May 2023 Heritage auction.
Catharine Carter Critcher (1868-1964)
Mother and Daughters, 1936
In Mother and Daughters, Critcher emphasizes both the spirituality and fertility of women by borrowing the formal vocabulary of early Renaissance Maestà (majesty) paintings that she was likely exposed to in Europe. In works such as Giotto’s Ognissanti Madonna, Mary sits on a frontally positioned throne with Jesus in her lap and angels at her side, while the top of the panel is shaped into a pediment recalling the “canopy of heaven.” In Critcher’s version of the Maestà composition, the traditional wide-lapped, blue-mantled mother sits with a basket in her lap and her girls at her side, while above her the triangular top of the tent serves as the heavenly canopy. The work sold for $81,250 in a May 2015 Heritage auction.
Joseph Christian Leyendecker (American, 1874-1951)
First Long Suit, The Saturday Evening Post cover, September 18, 1937
In this work, an impeccably dressed mother sits misty-eyed as her young son stands proudly in the mirror with his tailor, happily and proudly sizing himself up in his first grown-up suit. Situated up close on the picture plane, the young boy is the star of the narrative, while his mother looks on from the background. Leyendecker’s flawless combination of technical prowess, dazzling color and familial subject matter helped garner the painting $615,000 in a May 2022 Heritage auction.
Jessie Willcox Smith (American, 1863-1935)
A Rainy Day, Dream Blocks original illustration, 1908
This beautifully heartwarming illustration of a mother reading to her daughter on a rainy day was published in the 1908 book Dream Blocks by Aileen Higgins. An absolutely classic mother and child image, it was also reproduced in color in both Jessie Willcox Smith: American Illustrator by Edward D. Nudelman and Jessie Willcox Smith by S. Michael Schnessel. The mixed media piece realized $74,500 in an October 2012 Heritage auction.
Norman Rockwell (American, 1894-1978)
Home for Thanksgiving: Mother and Son Peeling Potatoes, The Saturday Evening Post cover, November 24, 1945
The narrative depicted in Rockwell’s beloved and oft-reproduced masterwork Home for Thanksgiving tells a story far greater than just that of the scene at hand. Commissioned for a November 1945 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, this painting tells the tale of the first Thanksgiving after the Allies’ victory in World War II. It is not just the story of an individual soldier and his proud, doting mother, but that of the nation. Rockwell regularly employed friends and neighbors as models for his paintings, and Home for Thanksgiving, which sold for $4,305,000 in a November 2021 Heritage auction, is no exception. Here, real-life mother and son Sarah and Richard Hagelberg (Rockwell’s milkman and former bombardier during the war) serve as his subjects.
François-Alfred Delobbe (French, 1835-1920)
Young mother and her child, circa 1860
This tender maternal scene of a young woman cradling her baby is an early work by Delobbe, painted around the same time as his 1861 debut at the Salon des Artistes Français with a portrait of his mother. Interestingly, the young mother in the present work possesses a strong sense of specificity rather than being a generic type. Her face is truly a portrait. The painting, which realized $20,000 in a June 2024 Heritage auction, also presages Delobbe’s interest in genre that recalls an earlier period. Through costume, Delobbe presents the moment as an event from the early 16th century, perhaps even the late 15th century.
Eanger Irving Couse (American, 1866-1936)
The Quai at Étaples, 1902
A Michigan native, Couse had a fondness for France, living in the small fishing port of Étaples on the Canche river for three years in the mid-1890s. In The Quai at Étaples, which depicts peasant life on the waterfront at dusk on a hazy evening, a mother tending to her child joins workers gathering fish and wrapping up a day of labor along the coast. The painting realized $35,000 in a November 2022 Heritage auction.
Marguerite Thompson Zorach (American, 1887-1968)
Mother and Child, 1919
As the Smithsonian American Art Museum notes, Zorach was “an early exponent of modernism in America, employing the bold colors of the Fauves (a group of radical French painters) with the striking, and controversial, forms of cubism.” Here, Zorach puts a modernist spin on the traditional mother and child image. She created the painting in 1919, two years after the birth of her second child. In 2018, the work sold at Heritage for $75,000.
Amos Sewell (American, 1901-1983)
Family Scene, The Saturday Evening Post cover, September 27, 1957
Sewell tackles one of the tougher moments of motherhood in this midcentury illustration for The Saturday Evening Post. Here, a mom and dad dressed to the nines are trying to step out for the evening, but their young son has other ideas. The work sold for $87,500 in a November 2019 Heritage auction.