Mother and Her Children in Church

Thérèse Schwartze

1886

Gift of Lord Strathcona and family, inv. 1927.397

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

A mother holds a baby while two children sit beside her in what appears to be a church. One child reads from a book, while the other rests her head on her arm. Thérèse Schwartze trained in Munich with Gabriel Max and Karl von Piloty, and studied in Paris under Jean-Jacques Henner. This painting bears eloquent witness to her artistic sensitivity and technical mastery, and reflects the influence of French academic painting and her Hague School contemporary Jozef Israëls. Both touching and unaffected, the grouping of this peasant woman seated with her three children is shown discreetly waiting against a church wall alongside a bulletin dated February 1886 and bearing the word “poor” – doubtlessly an appeal for charity. Schwartze was familiar with William Bouguereau’s work, but her painting is