La Bonne Mere
date: label: date made
content: n.d.
name: label: lithographer
content: Belden, Jr., J.
label: artist
content: Ball, W.
notes: label: Description
content: Sentimental genre prints documented the social image of Victorian virtue through domestic scenes of courtship, family, home life, and images of the “genteel female.” Children are depicted studying nature or caring for their obedient pets as they learn their place in the greater world. Romantic scenes picture devoted husbands with their contented, dutiful wives. In these prints, young women educated in reading, music, needlework, the arts, the language of flowers, basic math and science are subjugated to their family’s needs.
label: Description
content: These prints became popular as lithography was introduced to 19th Century Americans. As a new art form, it was affordable for the masses and provided a means to share visual information by crossing the barriers of race, class and language. Sentimental prints encouraged the artistic endeavors of schoolgirls and promoted the ambitions of amateur artists, while serving as both moral instruction and home or business decoration. They are a pictorial record of our romanticized past.
label: Description
content: This full length colored portrait print is of a mother feeding her young child. She is seated on an ornately carved bench in a garden next to a stone monument, which has a wreath on the front. On top of the monument are a bowl, a cat and two birds in a cage. On her other side is a wall with a flower pot. She is wearing a turban, necklace, bracelets on both wrists and a simple dress. One of her feet rests on a pillow. The baby is sitting on her mother's lap, swaddled in fringed cloth.
label: Description
content: J. Belden Jr was a lithographer who worked in Hartford, Connecticut.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Connecticut, Hartford
topic: label: Subject
content: Eating
label: Subject
content: Costume
label: Subject
content: Pets
label: Subject
content: Adornment
label: Subject
content: Children
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Domestic Life
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content: Art
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content: Peters Prints
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content: Domestic Furnishings
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Peters, Harry T.. America on Stone
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Harry T. Peters "America on Stone" Lithography Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: DL.60.2322
label: catalog number
content: 60.2322
label: accession number
content: 228146
objectType: label: Object Name
content: lithograph
label: Object Type
content: Lithograph
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hand-colored (image production method/technique)
label: Physical Description
content: ink (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: image: 12 in x 13 1/2 in; 30.48 cm x 34.29 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 12 in x 13 3/4 in; 30.48 cm x 34.925 cm