# Mother and Her Family in the Country

- By: Henry Fuseli (Swiss, active in England, 1741-1825)
- Date: 1806/07
- Medium: Pen and black ink, and brush and black and gray wash, with watercolor and traces of white gouache, over graphite, on ivory laid paper
- Classification: Drawing and Watercolor
- Dimensions: 45.7 × 31.1 cm (18 × 12 1/4 in.)
- Culture: Switzerland
- Credit line: Margaret Day Blake Purchase Fund income
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/94080)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/8646065a-7753-6d61-dd57-017c995ab47d/full/!1563,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Notwithstanding its ostensibly domestic theme, there is something slightly sinister in Fuseli’s rendering of a mother and her family, a study for a painting. The younger woman dangles a butterfly above the infant as if it were a toy, her menacing hairpin in frightening proximity to both insect and child. The seated woman presents the infant as if he were a sacrificial offering, and the fetishistic attention Fuseli pays to hair and dress strikes a disarmingly discordant note.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0