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About the Artwork
George Hitchcock decided to study art in Paris after practicing law for five years. He eventually settled in Holland and painted this Dutch peasant mother holding her baby and posing formally in a garden. Hitchcock was a visionary painter fascinated by the power of faith. But, like with many of his paintings, both the title and the scene here remain ambiguous, being neither clearly religious nor clearly secular. Early critics praised the work for its technical sophistication and representation of maternal tenderness, but they questioned its religious merit. Other reviewers, however, recognized religious symbolism throughout the painting. The mother's lacy headdress can represent a halo. The apple tree suggests the lost Eden, recovered through the birth of the child. The young bullock hints to the future sacrifice of Christ, and the prominent red tulip at the feet of the figures symbolizes the cup of sorrow. This painting's religious ambiguity exemplifies the 19th-century struggle to bring faith to terms with technical, philosophical, and scientific advances, namely Darwinism. Left to search for meaning in life and a spiritual identity, many artists, like Hitchcock, looked to women and nature for a link to the divine.
Inscriptions
signed lower right: -G- HITCHCOCK- / -1-8-9-2-
Provenance
purchased from Boussod-Valadon in 1893 by Mr. J.H. Wade
Exhibition history
American Expatriate Painters of the Late Nineteenth Century. Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH (organizer) (December 4, 1976-January 16, 1977); Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA (February 4-March 20, 1977). American Imagination and Symbolist Painting. Grey Art Gallery, New York, NY (organizer) (October 24-December 8, 1979); Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS (January 20-March 2, 1980). Cleveland Collects American Art of the Gilded Age. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 23-May 18, 2003).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- George Hitchcock (American, 1850–1913)
- Date
- 1892
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Unframed: 160.3 x 112 cm (63 1/8 x 44 1/8 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- American Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Wade
- Accession no.
- 1916.1057
More by George Hitchcock in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00009933
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