Treurende moeder bij het ziekbed van een kind 1822 - 1893

Eugène François de Block created this small etching, 'Treurende moeder bij het ziekbed van een kind', that translates to 'Mourning mother at the sickbed of a child'. Dominating the scene is the mother, her face buried in her hands, a gesture we have seen countless times across cultures to denote grief. We recognize this pose from antiquity onward; think of mourning figures on Roman sarcophagi or, moving forward through time, in devotional images of the lamentation of Christ. This mother’s gesture is more than personal sorrow; it echoes a collective history of mourning, a primal expression of loss that transcends time. This image taps into our deeply rooted understanding of suffering and the communal language of grief, reminding us that such expressions are part of a continuum, ever-present in the human condition. We see here the cyclical return and adaptation of symbols that define our shared emotional landscape.