A Mother Delousing her Child’s Hair, Known as ‘A Mother’s Duty’
Also titled Een moeder die het haar van haar kind reinigt, bekend als ‘Moedertaak’
Pieter de Hooch (Rotterdam, 1629–in o)
c. 1660 - c. 1661
- Medium
- canvas, oil paint (paint)
- Classification
- painting
- Dimensions
- height 52.5 cm x width 61 cm
- Museum
- Rijksmuseum
- Credit line
- On loan from the City of Amsterdam (A. van der Hoop Bequest)
- 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 thoroughly inspects her child’s head for lice. She pursues her task in a sober Dutch interior, with Delft blue tiles and a box bed. In the right foreground is a ‘kakstoel’, or potty chair. Through the doorway is a glimpse of a sunny back room and a garden. De Hooch specialized in such ‘through-views’.
