Jean-François Millet (Gruchy, France 1814–1875 Barbizon, France), La Précaution Maternelle (Motherly Care), 1862 (printed for Le Garrec 1921), Cliché-verre (glass plate print), The Dorothy Braude Edinburg (Class of 1942) Collection 1986.49

A member of the Realist movement, Jean-François Millet sought to accurately depict his contemporary world, including ordinary people and occupations, instead of the typical idealized allegorical, historical, and aristocratic subjects of many previous European artistic traditions. In this print, a mother stoops to hold up the smock of one child while her young daughter looks on and waits patiently. The pitchfork, shovel, and rough-hewn stone doorway suggest that this is a farming family. Millet himself came from a rural upbringing, and knew well the difficulty peasant women faced as both homemakers and laborers who struggled to provide for their families. In this scene, Millet reveals the multiple roles played by working-class mothers in rural France.

During the summer of 2021, Eleanor P. DeLorme Intern Rachel Beaton (‘21) curated a series of six acquisitions donated by members of the Friends of Art at the Davis, with a focus on the theme of motherhood. Over the course of the 2021-2022 academic year, the Davis will present each artwork individually for a time period of two months. By addressing topics as varied as war, prosperity, intimacy, and reverence, these artworks grapple with the image of the mother as a complex—and often conflicted—figure in both art history and the artists’ personal lives.