Our lecture will explore all facets of childhood as portrayed in the paintings of Renoir, Monet, Pissarro, Cassatt, Berthe Morisot and more recent artists. 

The background will be the great evolutions in education and the structure of the family in 19th century France: Universal education promoted under the 3rd Republic by minister Jules Ferry, the spread of maternities, the institution of nurses in middle and upper-class families. The exhibition examines how artists portrayed their own children as well as those of their clients and dealers, gardens and beaches as new settings for displaying childhood as well as the games, pets and daydreams of childhood and adolescence.