Laundress And Child 1761

Hubert Robert, active during the Enlightenment, painted "Laundress and Child" using oil on canvas. The setting is somewhere between domesticity and grandiosity, we see a laundress hanging fabrics in front of a grandiose fountain spouting from a lion’s mouth. The piece provides an intimate view of the laboring class, specifically a woman, her child and their dog. The image speaks to the identities of those who existed on the periphery of the French court during Robert’s time. The woman's gaze is focused upward as she stretches to hang the linens, her labor is seemingly endless. The child who is perhaps no older than two years old is relieving themself. The family dog sleeps soundly at their feet. This image asks us to meditate on the daily lives of those who sustained the very society that often ignored them. In looking, we give dignity to the laundress, her child, and their dog.