Artwork Page for Mother with Two Children

Details / Information for Mother with Two Children

Mother with Two Children

c. 1855

Jean-Baptist Frénet

(French, 1814–1889)
Culture
France
Medium
salted paper print from a collodion negative
Measurements
Paper: 23.1 x 16.5 cm (9 1/8 x 6 1/2 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20 x 16 in.)
Credit Line
Jo Hershey Selden Fund 2001.5
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print
?

Did You Know?

Frénet was one of the earliest photographers to take spontaneous, rather rigidly formal, portraits.

Description

After anti-government political activity closed off his professional opportunities as a painter, Jean-Baptiste Frénet took up photography in 1850 and a decade later opened a commercial portrait studio. He preferred simple, plain settings and relied on sitters’ interactions to reveal their personalities and relationships. This family grouping, probably taken for personal pleasure, offers a sense of casual immediacy unusual for the time in both painted and photographic portraiture.
A vertically oriented octagonal salted paper print depicts three people with light skin tones. At the center, a woman in a dark dress with a white collar looks toward our right, her dark hair parted. She holds a child in a knit cap and white dress on her lap, who gazes at us with their mouth wide open. On our right, an older child in a checkered shirt looks toward the woman.

Mother with Two Children

c. 1855

Jean-Baptist Frénet

(French, 1814–1889)
France

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