# A Mother Feeding her Child (The Happy Mother)

- By: Willem van Mieris (Dutch, 1662–1747)
- Date: 1707
- Medium: Oil on panel
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: 56.9 × 48.4 cm (22 3/8 × 19 1/16 in.); Framed: 83.2 × 74.6 × 6.4 cm (32 3/4 × 29 3/8 × 2 1/2 in.)
- Culture: Holland
- Credit line: Gift of Edson Keith
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/497)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/e6cc5bde6362ef7fe967ece292d08af6.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

In this scene of domestic life, Willem van Mieris employed the highly finished, enamel-like technique known as fine painting to achieve a surface that shows no obvious traces of brushwork. While painters like Gerard ter Borch and Caspar Netscher reserved this time-consuming style for rare and expensive textiles like silk, Van Mieris applied it to more commonplace materials. Here, for instance, the artist deftly applied highlights to the cane bassinet and ceramic pitcher on the table with the tip of his brush.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0