le coin sombre

Take your Son, Sir Ford Madox Brown (1851)

The painting depicts a woman showing her newborn son to his father. She is offering her baby towards the viewer of the painting, who is implicitly equated with the father – seen in the mirror behind, opening his arms to receive the baby. The mirror also forms a halo behind the mother's head, and the pattern on the wallpaper suggests the starry heavens. Brown's principal influence was Jan van Eyck's painting the Arnolfini Marriage Portrait, which had recently been acquired by the National Gallery. The mirror resembles the circular mirror in van Eyck's painting, which reflects an image of the artist looking at the couple in the image. Brown's own wife was the model for this painting, which also depicts their son. She was pregnant whilst he started making this picture and she gave later birth to a son which they named Arthur. Arthur then died at just ten months old and it is believed that Brown was unable to complete the painting through grief for his son.

~ Florence Harrison, table of contents illustrations for Christina Rossetti: Poems (1910)