Reversal of Roles 1892

Georgios Jakobides' painting captures a quiet moment between mother and child, rendered with oil on canvas. The artist has used the smooth, easily blended qualities of oil paint to suggest the softness of skin, the crispness of cotton cloth, and the dappled sunlight filtering through leaves. But consider how the very subject of the painting – the reversal of roles between mother and child, the child feeding the mother – speaks to shifts in social structures. While on the one hand, the scene celebrates an intimacy born of leisure, we may also note how the child, too, performs labour. Here, the labour of care. By focusing on the materiality of the scene – the work involved in pouring tea, offering a spoonful, sitting patiently – Jakobides hints at the complex labour relations inherent in the domestic sphere. And, so, this painting reminds us that even scenes of quietude are also moments of production.