The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 29, 2024

The Blessed Mother

The Blessed Mother

1892
(American, 1850–1913)
Unframed: 160.3 x 112 cm (63 1/8 x 44 1/8 in.)
Location: not on view

Description

George Hitchcock decided to study art in Paris after practicing law for five years. He eventually settled in Holland and painted this Dutch peasant mother holding her baby and posing formally in a garden. Hitchcock was a visionary painter fascinated by the power of faith. But, like with many of his paintings, both the title and the scene here remain ambiguous, being neither clearly religious nor clearly secular. Early critics praised the work for its technical sophistication and representation of maternal tenderness, but they questioned its religious merit. Other reviewers, however, recognized religious symbolism throughout the painting. The mother's lacy headdress can represent a halo. The apple tree suggests the lost Eden, recovered through the birth of the child. The young bullock hints to the future sacrifice of Christ, and the prominent red tulip at the feet of the figures symbolizes the cup of sorrow. This painting's religious ambiguity exemplifies the 19th-century struggle to bring faith to terms with technical, philosophical, and scientific advances, namely Darwinism. Left to search for meaning in life and a spiritual identity, many artists, like Hitchcock, looked to women and nature for a link to the divine.
  • purchased from Boussod-Valadon in 1893 by Mr. J.H. Wade
  • "The Wade Collection." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 4, no. 1 (1917): 3-12. Mentioned: p. 4; reproduced: p. 7 www.jstor.org
    Stott, Annette. "Marcia Oakes Woodbury and Religious Identity in Moeder en Dochter: Het Geheele Leven." Journal of the Archives of American Art, 56 no.1 (Spring 2017): 24-41. Reproduced and mentioned; p. 31, fig. 7
    Belt, Werner van den, and Bob Hardus. De schilders van Duin- en Bollenstreek. Zwolle: WBOOKS, 2021. Reproduced: P. 110
  • Cleveland Collects American Art of the Gilded Age. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 23-May 18, 2003).
    American Imagination and Symbolist Painting. Grey Art Gallery, New York, NY (organizer) (October 24-December 8, 1979); Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS (January 20-March 2, 1980).
    New York, Grey Art Gallery and Study Center, New York University, American Imagination and Symbolist Painting, (24 October- 8 December 1979), cat. no. 29, as Blessed Mother; traveled to the Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas (20 January - 2 March 1980).
    American Expatriate Painters of the Late Nineteenth Century. Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH (organizer) (December 4, 1976-January 16, 1977); Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA (February 4-March 20, 1977).
    Dayton, Ohio, The Dayton Art Institute, American Expatriate Painters of the Late Nineteenth Century, (4 December 1976- 16 January 1977), no. 12; as Blessed Mother; traveled to Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (4 February 1977- 20 March 1977) and Los Angeles Country Museum of Art (12 April 1977- 29 May 1977).
  • {{cite web|title=The Blessed Mother|url=false|author=George Hitchcock|year=1892|access-date=29 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1916.1057