Mother and Child (Primary Title)
(also known as Mother and Babe) (Alternate Title)
Bessie Potter Vonnoh, American, 1872 - 1955 (Artist)
Roman Bronze Works, American, founded 1897 (Foundry)
Vonnoh, like her colleague Mary Cassatt, cultivated a successful career producing sculptures of upper-class women at different stages of life. Images of mother and child, like this one, were among her most popular works and were reproduced in numerous castings. Here the artist’s modeling skills are revealed in the controlled naturalism of the figures and the graceful treatment of the drapery.
By the time she modeled Mother and Child, Vonnoh had established a reputation in the art form. The novelist William Dean Howells praised her for giving “the Muse of sculpture . . . a chance to become a fellow citizen, and to vote with the rest of us when her sex gets the suffrage.”
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