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The First Day of School
Also titled De eerste schooldag
Jean Baptiste Vanmour (Valenciennes, 1671–1737)
c. 1720 - c. 1737
- Medium
- canvas, oil paint (paint)
- Classification
- painting
- Dimensions
- height 38.5 cm x width 53 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
A mother, accompanied by a group of women, brings her daughter to school for the first time. That the women are Turkish can be seen from their colourful clothing and the yellow slippers that only Muslims could wear, according to sumptuary laws (dress codes). A servant carries the girl’s embroidery frame. Needlework was a favourite pastime of women in affluent Turkish circles. Women held in slavery did the household chores.