Artwork
Destitute Dead Mother holding her sleeping Child in Winter
Destitute Dead Mother holding her sleeping Child in Winter is an oil painting by the Realist artist Octave Tassaert. It dates from 1850 and is held in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Octave Tassaell’s oil painting, dated around 1850, portrays a destitute mother cradling her sleeping infant amid a bleak winter setting.
About this work
Technique & Style
The piece utilizes traditional oil paints as its primary medium, characteristic of French artistic production during the mid-nineteenth century.
Executed in 1850, this work by Octave Tassaert is an oil painting applied to a canvas support. The piece utilizes traditional oil paints as its primary medium, characteristic of French artistic production during the mid-nineteenth century. As a classified painting, the work relies on the layering and blending capabilities of oil to render its subject matter.
The combination of oil and canvas provided the artist with a durable yet flexible surface suitable for the detailed figurative representation found in the composition.
History & Provenance
Octave Tassaert created the oil painting Destitute Dead Mother holding her sleeping Child in Winter in 1850. The work was produced in France on a canvas support. It eventually entered the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, where it is cataloged under the accession number 2013.257.
The painting Destitute Dead Mother holding her sleeping Child in Winter is held in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art in Cleveland. The work, created by Octave Tassaert in 1850, is cataloged under the accession number 2013.257. It is an oil on canvas piece originating from France.
Overview
Octave Tassaell’s oil painting, dated around 1850, portrays a destitute mother cradling her sleeping infant amid a bleak winter setting. The work is part of the collection at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Its muted palette and stark composition convey a somber atmosphere that invites contemplation of poverty and maternal devotion.
Subject & Meaning
The central figure, a woman in a threadbare brown coat, leans against a damp stone wall, her posture exhausted and her head tipped back. She gently holds a child swaddled in ragged cloth, whose serene sleep contrasts with the surrounding harshness, suggesting themes of vulnerability, endurance, and the quiet resilience of the impoverished.
Context
Tassaell worked during a period when French artists increasingly depicted social realities, aligning with the realist movement’s focus on everyday hardship. This work echoes contemporary concerns about urban poverty and the plight of the working class, situating it within a broader artistic response to the social conditions of the era.
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Artist & collection
Artist
Nicolas François Octave Tassaert (Paris, 26 July 1800 – Paris, 24 April 1874) was a French painter of portraits and genre, religious, historical and allegorical paintings, as well as a lithographer and engraver.
