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The Patricides, ‘Each According to Their Own Nature’
Also titled De vadermoorders, ‘Het wil al muizen wat van katten komt’
David Bles (The Hague, 1821–1899)
1869
- Medium
- panel, oil paint (paint)
- Classification
- painting
- Dimensions
- height 49 cm x width 67 cm
- Museum
- Rijksmuseum
- Rights
- Public Domain Mark, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
About this work
Just as cats instinctively chase mice, so do these children playing war resemble their father, who is in the armed forces. The Bible on the lectern is more in keeping with his wife and the youngest child, who do not join in the fray. With this painting Bles may have meant to show that a harmonious family can include members with different dispositions, in which some children take after their father, and others their mother.
