Happy Mothers and Other New Ideas in Eighteenth Century French Art

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Happy Mothers and Other New Ideas in
Eighteenth-Century French Art

Carol Duncan
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• Examining family relationships
• French artists and writers of the 18th century
  were captivated by the ideal of the happy mother
  and loving father.

• ..the content of this work was far from
  commonplace
• CONTENTs the happy mother, loving father,
  adoring SIX children, worshipping grandmother and
  family dogs.
• CONTENTment the satisfied and happy family
  (ergo the hard-backbreaking work is well worth it
  for so much bliss).

to all men of feeling and sensibility keep
your family comfortablegive your wife as many
children as you canand be assured of being
happy at home. --Diderot on The Beloved Mother
Jean Baptiste Greuze, The Beloved Mother (La Mere
bienaimee), 1765. Paris De Laborde Collection
(from Gazette des Beaux-Arts, LVI, 1960).
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While Greuze stated, with The Beloved Mother, how
absolutely blissful domestic life is Chardins
propaganda in Saying Grace tones it down to how
pleasant domestic life is.
Jean Baptiste Chardin, Saying Grace (Le
Benedicite), ca. 1740. Paris, Louvre.
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• Motherhood and sexual satisfaction going hand in
  hand was a popular theme, especially in imagery.
• -this printportrays marriage as a state that
  satisfies both sexual instincts and social
  demands for stability and order.
• The baby, like Cupid above reaches for an
  enticing object but it is his father, not his
  mother, who imitates the Venus overhead.

• sexual gratification, marriage and parenthood
  come in a single package suitable for elevated
  tastes.

After Moreau le jeune, The Delights of Motherhood
(Les Delices de la maternite), 1777, engraved by
Helman. Paris, Bibliotheque nationale.
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Mawage(marriage)

• A legal contract negotiated between head of
  families.
• Contract itemized in detail what each family
  would settle on the new couple.
• In the lower classes, those with title to nothing
  DID NOT MARRY LEGALLY.
• In the absence of male heirs a daughter required
  a dowry
• Widespread view of marital relationship in 17th
  and 18th centuries was negative.
• Among the wealthy, bachelorhood was often a
  chosen state.
• Couples occasionally managed elopements at risk
  of disinheritance.
• Adultery was acceptable.

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Households for aristocrats, wealthy peasants
and artisans

• Estates and homesteads swarmed with unwed
  relatives, apprentices, servants and retainers.
• Fathers/Husbands stood for authority, not
  companionship, as they ruled over and protected
  their households.

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Family pride and loyalty ofAn old household

• The son (or son-in-law), his wife and children

• Old father, his wife, and unmarried daughter or a
  female relative.

• Boy seated is apprentice or servant.

• Note the two young girls are dressed far better
  and as small adults.

Antoine Le Nain, Portraits in an Interior, 1649.
Paris, Louvre.
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The Freedom of Marriage
For the fashionable woman, marriage in effect
meant independence. After presenting her husband
with one or two children, she had ample leave to
pursue her own pleasures. So-called natural
children were produced in abundance--and often
acknowledged--at all levels of society.
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Child Rearing

• Children were regarded by both men and women as
  debilitating and obnoxious.
• arrival of an heir brought honor to the mother,
  but tending to its infant needs and earliest
  education was the work of servants.
• Age four children entered their homes for the
  first time.
• Age seven children were dressed in adult
  clothes. Boys were sent to school or
  apprenticeships.
• Children could grow up barely knowing their
  parents. This of course is still practiced in
  upper classes and especially royal families.
  Nannies are treated almost as one of the family.
• Many parents, remembering their cold
  childhooddeveloped more affectionate relations
  with their children.

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Shift in popular opinion caused Aubry to teach
through his paintings environment and social
behavior mean more than simple blood ties and
that good parents nurse and keep their children
at home.
Etienne Aubry, Fatherly Love (LAmour paternel),
1775. Birmingham, The Barber Institute of Fine
Arts, University of Birmingham.
Others like Greuze also taught through
painting the environment makes the child and
the child makes the man.
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The Nature of Womanas written by 18th century
writers

• She fulfills the physical and emotional needs of
  her husband
• Gladly submits to her husbands will
• She is thrifty
• Skilled in the domestic arts
• A good mother and nurse to her children.
• Has been educated to find personal and emotional
  fulfillment in the execution of her duties.

• Psychologically trained to want to do the very
  things she must do in a middle-class family
  society.
• Own fancies must be crushed in infancy so that
  they will become habitually docile and feel that
  they were made to obey.
• Organizing her life around her own pleasures
  rather than needs of her husband and children
  violated the laws of nature.

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Indeed, the cult of motherhood conquered male
writers before it significantly changed the lives
of women.